Artist Presentation - Marina Abramović

The artist I researched and talked about is Marina Abramović. She is a performance artist who is concerned with awareness of body, time, and ephemeral experiences.

She was born in 1946 and originally from Serbia (formerly Yugoslavia). She began doing performance art in Yugoslavia in 1973. In 1976, she moved to Amsterdam and met her long-time collaborator Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen). Her most recent collaborators include Lady Gaga and Jay-Z.

Abramović has said that "Performance is time-based art. Performance is living form of art. And performance is immaterial form of art. It is very important for the public to understand and feel for themselves."

The concepts I draw on from her work is its immateriality, its time-conscious form, and the way it makes its audience aware of their own bodies. She uses the body and time as a medium, and often incorporates her own body and the bodies of her audience. Her work forces you to be present and in the moment. You are aware of your own body in relation to others in a way that is unable to be captured. The immateriality of her work fascinates me. It requires the audience to be in the moment of experience, like zen meditation. Life is fleeting. You try to hold onto it, but you can't. Best not to try.

Some of her works:

Rhythm 10 (1973, top left) - Recorded sound of the knife game until she cut herself, then played the recording back and tried to match exactly while also recording a new track. There were 6 tape recorders and 20 knives. She merged past and present, using time and her own body as media.

Rhythm 0 (1974, top center) - She stood passive for 6 hours with a table of 72 objects. Participants could do anything to her. At first they were shy, but then they became more and more bold. Someone tore her clothes. Someone pricked her skin with the thorns of a rose. Someone pointed a loaded gun at her, and someone else pointed it away.

Imponderabilia (1977, top right) - Abramović and Ulay stand facing each other in a doorway, naked. In squeezing through the doorway, one must choose which artist to face.

The Great Wall Walk (1988, bottom left) - In order to break up their practice, Abramović and Ulay walked to opposite ends of the Great Wall of China from its middle, never to see each other again until

The Artist is Present (2010, bottom right) - Abramović sat at a table in MoMA for three months. People were invited to sit silently across from her. Many attended, including Ulay. It was not only participatory for the audience, but also performative.

All these works explore ideas of body awareness and utilize time as a medium. They create no lasting artifacts, and need to be experienced as a performance and often a participatory work. Most of all, they force the audience to be present.

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