Maria Abramovich performance. Performance is the most honest of the arts.

In 1965, Marina entered the Academy fine arts in Belgrade (Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrad), and in 1972 received a master's degree from the Croatian Academy of Fine Arts (Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb).

Serbian artist, performance artist, whose works go far beyond the limits outlined by art and reveal to the audience all the ins and outs human soul. The artist herself recalls her childhood and youth with irony: her great-uncle was the Patriarch of Serbia, and her parents national heroes, partisans in the Second world war. “My mother always had military control over me and my brother,” Marina recalls in an interview, “I couldn’t be home after 10 pm until I turned 29; all the performances, all the stunts, all the cuts, fractures and deadly stunts - everything happened until 10 p.m." In 1965, Marina entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrad, and in 1972 she received a master's degree from the Croatian Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb.

It must be said that the artist’s works really differed from the usual understanding of art: even Abramovic’s themes and manner of execution were perceived differently by the public. Yes, from early period creativity, one cannot fail to note the series of works “Rhythm...”, the purpose of which was to better understand the artist’s philosophy and his relationship with the world. In one of the first works in the series, Marina, sitting at the table, played with 20 different knives; Constantly accelerating the pace, she tried to hit the knife exactly between her fingers, but this did not always work. All this was recorded on film, the knife was changed after each cut. So, as soon as she had inflicted 20 cuts on herself, she began the game again, as if blurring the line between past and present, trying to get to the same places without changing the pace.

No less interesting is the work called “Rhythm 0”: 72 objects, either causing pain or giving pleasure, were laid out on the table in front of Marina; any visitor to the exhibition could use the objects at their own discretion, but Marina herself remained passive. At first, the public behaved quite modestly and delicately, but, realizing that there should be no response from the artist, they gradually began to behave more aggressively: for several hours, visitors shredded Marina’s clothes, cut her with dull scissors and stabbed her in the stomach with needles, one of the visitors even grabbed a loaded pistol, but, fortunately, he was stopped in time. “The experience I have gained suggests that if you leave the decision to the public, you can be killed,” Marina said. It is also interesting that after the end of the performance, Abramovich came out to the audience to thank them for their participation, but every single one of them ran away, fearing retribution.

One of the most striking and beautiful episodes of Marina’s biography was her relationship with the artist and photographer Uwe Laysiepen, better known under the pseudonym Ulay. Captivated by each other, they worked together, raising quite loud philosophical themes: freedom of the individual in relationships, the uniqueness of the artist, the possibility of self-sacrifice for the sake of another. Thus, according to critics and psychologists, their work “Breathing In/Breathing Out” largely reflects the whole essence of human relationships: connected special apparatus, they breathed the recycled air that each of them exhaled for 17 minutes, after which they simultaneously lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen.

However, after several years, Marina and Ulay decided to end their relationship, but turn their separation into a work of art, so that they could remain artists until the very end. Each of them walked halfway along the Great Wall of China (Ulay started from the Gobi Desert, Marina - from the Yellow Sea), and their meeting after more than 2,500 kilometers walked symbolized at the same time an eternal separation. So, after the breakup, the love story of Marina and Ulay was called one of the most beautiful stories love of the 20th century.

They did not meet again soon: in 2010, Marina introduced new job- “The Artist Is Present”, during which anyone could sit opposite her and look into her eyes without saying anything. Over the course of more than 700 hours of exhibition, 1,500 people exchanged glances with the artist, including many show business figures and musicians, including Lady Gaga and many others. The most striking event was the meeting of Marina and Ulay, who, after so many years of separation, held hands for the first time, only to part again a few seconds later.

Today, Marina continues to work and perform. During her career, she had exhibitions in all largest museums peace. For her, art is inseparable from life: “If you don’t like performance, you don’t like life,” she is sure.

Biography

Author of the famous installation “Relationships in Space” (1976). The completely undressed artist and her lover German artist Ulay (Uwe Leysipen) depicted in full open relationship, tormenting each other in front of the audience. Their collaboration lasted from 1976 to 1989. The composition “Communist Body, Capitalist Body” (1980s) became a protest against the division of people by ideological barriers. Marina Abramović's installations sometimes shocked viewers (in 1988, one viewer fainted at the exhibition). In 1997, Marina Abramovic received prestigious award“Golden Lion” at the Venice Biennale for the work “Balkan Baroque” - the artist washed a mountain of bloody bones in memory of the victims of the war in Yugoslavia.

Rhythm 0, 1974

To test the limits of connection between performer and audience, Abramović created one of her most complex and famous performances. She assigned herself a passive role; the public had to act. Abramović placed 72 objects on the table that people could use as they pleased. Some of these objects could provide pleasure, while others could cause pain. Among them were scissors, a knife, a whip and even a pistol with one cartridge. The artist allowed the public to manipulate her body and movements for six hours. At first, the audience behaved modestly and cautiously, but after some time, during which the artist remained passive, the participants became more aggressive. Abramovich later recalled: “My experience is that if you leave the decision to the public, you can get killed.<...>I felt real violence: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one took a gun and aimed at my head, but the other took the weapon. An atmosphere of aggression reigned. Six hours later, as planned, I got up and walked towards the audience. Everyone rushed away, fleeing a real confrontation."

Working with Ulay

Marina Abramovich in Russia

In October 2011, the “largest retrospective” of Marina Abramovic entitled “In the Presence of the Artist,” curated by the director of the MoMA PS1 center, opened at the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow. (English) Russian and senior curator special projects Museum contemporary art New York

Marina Abramovic was born in Yugoslavia in 1946. In the late 1960s she began experimenting with sound and space. She created works consisting only of the noise of a blank audio cassette being played in a tape recorder or the sound of a metronome in an empty room. Since the mid-1970s, Abramović began to engage in performance art, declaring her own body as the main object and means. artistic expression in his works. She began with a series of long-term performances that protested against the political climate of socialist Yugoslavia. In her early performances, Abramovich, as a rule, put herself, and sometimes the audience, in extreme conditions - in front of the public she took large doses of potent psychotropic drugs (“Rhythm 2”, 1974), deliberately inflicted wounds on herself by sticking knives between her fingers (“Rhythm” 10", 1973), lay in a burning structure in the form of a five-pointed star ("Rhythm 5", 1974), cut a star on her stomach with a razor and then lay on the ice with bleeding wounds ("Thomas Lips", 1975). The culmination of these self-experiments was the famous performance “Rhythm 0” (1974) at the Morra Gallery in Naples, during which Abramović laid out 72 objects in front of the audience that people could use as they wished. Some of these objects could provide pleasure, while others could cause pain. Among them were scissors, a knife, a whip and even a pistol with one cartridge. The artist allowed the public to manipulate her body and movements for six hours. At first, the audience behaved modestly and cautiously, but after some time, during which the artist remained passive, the participants became more aggressive. Abramovich later recalled: “My experience is that if you leave the decision to the public, you can get killed.<...>I felt real violence: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one took a gun and aimed at my head, but the other took the weapon. An atmosphere of aggression reigned. Six hours later, as planned, I got up and walked towards the audience. Everyone rushed away, fleeing a real confrontation."

In 1975, Abramović moved to Amsterdam, where she met the artist Ulay (Uwe Leysipena), who became her life partner and performance partner for 12 years. The artists continued the experiments in the field of exploring the boundaries of human physiological and psychological capabilities, begun by Marina in “Rhythms,” together. One of the first joint performances of Marina Abramovich and Ulay was “Relationships in Space”, first shown in 1976 at Venice Biennale. Two naked bodies, picking up speed, run towards each other and collide frontally. In this way, the artists wanted to combine the masculine and feminine energy, creating a third thing, something they called ThatSelf. The idea of ​​another performance, Imponderabilia (1977), was that the artist became the entrance to the museum. Marina Abramovich and Ulay were invited to big festival performances in Bologna, where they decided to change main entrance into the museum, narrowing it with their bodies. When the public came to the museum to watch the performances, they were faced with a choice: they had to squeeze through a narrow door, turning to face one of the naked artists - it was impossible to walk straight. The performance was scheduled to last six hours, but after three hours the police arrived and demanded to see documents and a passport - this was the end of the performance. In the performance "Inhale / Exhale" (1979), Marina and Ulay breathed into each other's mouths, inhaling the air exhaled by the other, until both fell unconscious. In the performance “AAA-AAA” (1978), they shouted at each other until they lost their voices. In the performance “Energy of Peace” (1980), Ulay aimed a poisoned arrow from a drawn bow right at Marina’s heart, while the balance of the arrow was maintained only by the weight of the partners’ bodies. “We had two microphones attached to our hearts and we could hear them beating. As our performance developed, it became more and more intense. It lasted four minutes and ten seconds, and to me it felt like an eternity. It was a performance entirely dedicated to boundless trust.”

Marina Abramovich and Ulay purchased a small Citroen bus from the French police and lived in it. In 1977, they used this car in a performance: it was “Relationships in Motion” that was at the Paris Biennale, where Ulay was driving a car at the entrance to the museum, and Marina Abramovic, leaning out of the window with a megaphone, shouted out the number of laps he had made, trying to understand who It will fizzle out faster – the artists or the machine.

The motor burned out after 16 hours, leaving a barely noticeable black mark in the form of circles on the marble.

The union of the two artists ended in 1988 with the performance “Walking on Great Wall" While living in the Australian desert among the aborigines, Marina Abramovich and Ulay saw a report in which the astronauts said that the only human buildings that are visible from the moon are the pyramids and the Great Wall of China. Then the artists had the idea to walk towards each other along the Great Wall of China. It took them almost eight years to get permission for the performance from the Chinese authorities. After Marina and Ulay came to the idea that the Great Wall of China was not built for protection from Genghis Khan and other enemies, but rather carried a metaphysical meaning, being an exact copy Milky Way on the ground. It begins in the Yellow Sea, where the head of the Dragon rests, his tail is in the Gobi Desert, and his body is in the mountains. Ulay, like the element of fire, like masculinity, began his journey from the desert. Marina Abramovich, like the feminine principle, comes from the water, from the sea. Initially, they planned to meet in the middle of the wall and get married. However, in the years between the start of the project and its completion, the relationship between Abramovich and Ulay faded. This performance was their last joint project. Each of the artists walked two and a half thousand kilometers to meet in the middle and part, continuing to work separately.

In the 1990s, during political conflict in the Balkans, Abramovich began to explore in her works cultural heritage of your country. In the performance "Balkan Baroque" shown at the Venice Biennale in 1997 (Golden Lion Award of the Venice Biennale), she spent four days cleaning the meat and washing the blood from two and a half tons of beef bones, singing Balkan folk songs and telling stories creepy stories about killer rats that are bred in the Balkans.

In the 2000s, the artist increasingly turned to Eastern practices of meditation, self-purification and comprehension of energy essences. Thus, the performance “Nude with a Skeleton”, repeated by Abramovich three times - in 2002, 2005 and 2010 - refers to the ancient practice of Tibetan monks who meditated next to dead body. “House with an Ocean View” (2002) is an experiment in self-restraint (Abramović fasted, drank only water and was constantly in front of the audience for 12 days), designed to make visitors watching the performance forget about the sense of time.

Another aspect of Abramović's work in the 2000s was working with the very concept of performance, its exhibition and preservation in art history. In particular, the artist works with young performers on re-performances own works. In the performance “Seven Easy Pieces” (2005, Guggenheim Museum, New York), Abramović reproduced five performances by other artists over the course of seven days, seven hours each (“Body Pressure” by Bruce Nauman, 1974; “Bed for a Seed” by Vito Acconci, 1972; "Genital Panic" by VALI EXPORT, 1969; "Preparation, the first of the three phases of self-portrait(s)" by Gina Payne, 1973; "How to Explain Painting to a Dead Hare" by Joseph Beuys, 1965) and two of his own (Thomas's Lips, 1975 and " Entrance to the other side", 2005).

The largest retrospective of Marina Abramovic, The Artist is Present, was held in 2010 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In addition to the main exhibition, Abramovic presented a new performance: throughout the duration of the exhibition, viewers were given the opportunity to sit opposite the artist and look into her eyes for as long as they wanted (many could not stand it for more than ten minutes, and also began to cry). In 2011, in an expanded form and under the title “In the presence of the artist,” this retrospective was repeated at the Center modern culture"Garage" in Moscow.

The other day, Marina Abramovic’s campaign to raise $600,000 for her performance institute ended on the Kickstarter website, with a final result of $661,452. As part of the campaign, several videos were released, in one of which Lady Gaga starred, naked in the forest during a demonstration of one of the “ Abramovich methods. Although in last weeks Whether Abramović shared the stage with rapper Jay-Z during the Picasso Baby performance at Pace Gallery or found her name in Frank Ocean's remix of Migos' song Versace, there is still a lot to be said about the self-proclaimed “grandmother of performance art.” Throughout her career, she devoted herself entirely to her work, often risking her life for the sake of art. And she continues to do this within the framework of her new institute.

01. When she was 14, she played Russian roulette with her mother's gun.

This is reflected in Robert Wilson's play, where her difficult relationship with her mother was shown in great detail. Ironically, on premiere show Abramović played her mother in the play in 2011. This production will be seen again at the Park Avenue Armory in New York in December 2013.

02. In her youth, she tried to break her nose to force her parents to pay for plastic surgery.

This was also told in the play “The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic”, confirming both Marina’s passion and her difficult relationships with parents. This episode foreshadowed her escape from her native Belgrade at the age of 29. In a 2012 interview with The Daily Beast, she said, “When I was 14, I thought I looked terrible. I wore typical Slovakian boots with metal soles (so I could always be heard), an ugly princess-like skirt, and a buttoned-up blouse. I have had child's face, covered in acne, a huge nose and a boyish haircut. And mine cherished dream in those years it was like having a nose like Brigitte Bardot.”

03. Before Abramović learned about performance art, she was a painter and painted "big colliding socialist trucks" and "little innocent socialist toy trucks."

One day she asked an officer if she could fly a fighter jet to “paint the sky with smoke.” She was refused, citing the fact that she had breakdown. But the impression of supersonic planes leaving an elusive contrail in the sky turned out to be unusually strong and inspired Abramović to become a performance artist: “From that day I stopped drawing. Instead, I began to pay more attention to what was around me and use it in my work. It took me a while to realize that I could be my own art.”

04. At the age of 19, in the first year of his studies at art school, she came up with the performance ComeWashwithMefor Belgrade GalerijaDomaOmladine: spectators were asked to undress at the entrance so that the artist could wash their clothes.

This work was offered to the gallery in 1965, but Abramović waited four years for a response and was eventually rejected. Abramović's retrospective "In the Present of the Artist" at MoMA featured a drawing for this application, which turned out to be the oldest piece in the exhibition.

05. After Abramovich fled Belgrade at 29, she made a living by knitting sweaters.

In the years when it was not yet possible to make money from performance art, Marina worked several jobs to support herself.

06. She lived whole year with the Aborigines on the outskirts of Australia.

In addition to Tibetan culture, Marina Abramovic strong impression produced by the Australian Aboriginal culture: in the 1980s, she lived with them in central Australia. “These two cultures taught me how to control my physical/mental body,” she says.

07. At the same time, she raised a baby kangaroo.

In a recent video, Abramovich said the closest she came to being a mother was raising a baby kangaroo. His mother was killed by the aborigines in whose tribe she lived. In numerous interviews, including a recent Reddit poll, Abramovich has stated that she never intended to get married or have children.

08. She believes that an artist should not fall in love with other artists.

In his Manifesto for the Life of an Artist, Abramović writes that “the artist must avoid love relationship with another artist." Responding to a Reddit poll on July 31, 2013, she explains: “I've done this three times in my life, and every time it ended with me. broken hearted. I judge from my own experience. This is a very competitive situation that is difficult to describe in a nutshell. And this is a subject for a long conversation. It’s better to look at the artists who lived together (both in the past and now) and understand how tragic everything happened for them.”

09. In 1997, she made a performance called “Balkan Baroque,” ​​during which she brushed 1,500 cow bones for six hours a day.

The work was made for the Venice Biennale. During the performance she also sang and told stories about Belgrade, her hometown. In an interview with a newspaper The Guardian she said: “When people ask me where I’m from, I never say Serbia. I always answer that I am from a country that no longer exists.”

10. For one of the works, she used a razor to carve a five-pointed star on her stomach.

In 1975, Marina Abramovic performed the performance “Thomas Lips”: first she cut a five-pointed communist star on her stomach with a razor, then flogged herself, and then lay down for 30 minutes on a piece of ice in the shape of a cross, standing under a heater. One day, Marina’s grandmother found her unconscious and with burnt hair while preparing for this performance.

11. During another job, she masturbated while under a wooden deck at the Guggenheim Museum that was being walked on by visitors at the time.

In 2005, Abramovic repeated Vito Acconci's performance Seedbed (1972) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Later, Abramovic said that during the performance she experienced nine powerful orgasms. The project also included repetitions of works by Bruce Nauman, Gina Pane, Valya Export, and Joseph Beuys as an ode to the performances of the past.

12. One of her works served as the basis for the series “Sex in big city».

In the 12th episode of the sixth season of Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw meets Alexander Petrovsky. This takes place during an exhibition-performance, during which the artist lives in a gallery without food or water. This episode was inspired similar project Abramovich at Sean Kelly Gallery, called "House with an Ocean View".

13. Marina Abramovic sold one of her three lofts in Soho to the creative director of GivenchyRiccardo Tisci for $3,060,000.

In a Reddit poll, she said that Riccardo Tisci and she are “very Good friends. He is part of my artistic family. He is an original creator and I respect him. Besides, I have fun with him, which is important.” They are so close that she sold him one of her three apartments in SoHo, on King Street, between Varick and Sixth Avenue.

Marina Abramović is a Yugoslav artist, one of the pioneers of performance art as artistic form. Experiments with own body and the psyche of the audience. Born on November 30, 1946 in Belgrade. In the early 1970s, she entered the world of artistic performance with the scandalous installations “Dragon Heart” and “Rhythm Zero”. In 1975, Abramovich meets German artist Ulay and collaborated with him until 1989. In 1976, the artist moved to Amsterdam. Marina Abramovic lectured extensively in Europe and America, from 1994 (for the next seven years) as Professor of Performance Art at the Hochschule Bildende Kunst in Braunschweig, Germany. In 1997, Abramovich received the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale for his work “Balkan Baroque”, and in 2003 he received the Bessie Award for the installation “House with a Window on the Ocean”. In December 2008, Marina Abramovich came to Moscow for the Kandinsky Prize, and on the eve of its presentation she gave a lecture, showed a film and a performance. The first retrospective exhibition of Marina Abramovic took place in 2010 at MoMA (New York). Currently lives and works in New York. PERFORMANCES 1. Rythm 0, 1974. At the Studio Mona gallery in Milan, Marina Abramovic invited the audience to do something with her body, using objects laid out on a table. The performance was interrupted at the moment when Abramovich, already half naked (the spectators-participants cut her clothes off in pieces), someone stuck the barrel of a gun in her mouth.
2. Relation in Space (Relationships in Space), 1976. Abramovich and the artist Ulay (they had a relationship and work for 12 years), naked, touched and beat each other until exhaustion. 3. Imponderabillia, 1977 A person who wants to get into the exhibition has to squeeze between two naked people standing in the doorway.
4. Breathing In and Breathing Out (Inhalation and exhalation), 1977 Marina Abramovic and Ulay connected their mouths with a special unit and inhaled each other’s exhalations until the oxygen ran out. Seventeen minutes after the start of the performance, both fell to the floor unconscious with lungs filled with carbon dioxide. This performance explored the ability of an individual to absorb the life of another person, exchanging and destroying it.
5. Relation in Time (Relationships in Time), 1977 For 17 hours, Abramovic was tied with her hair to her lover.
6. AAA-AAA, 1978 Again Abramovich is paired with Ulay: this time they shout at each other frantically.
7. Rest Energy (Rest Energy), 1980 For 4 minutes, Abramovich holds a bow, and Ulay holds an arrow aimed at her heart, and a drawn string. The speakers broadcast the alarming beating of her heart and his ragged breathing. Any carelessness can be fatal.
8. Balkan Baroque (Balkan Baroque), 1997 Abramovich washed a mountain of bones in memory of the victims of the war in her homeland, Yugoslavia.
9. Nude with Skeleton Abramovich lay side by side with a naturalistic skeleton for more than 700 hours.
10. The Artist Is Present (In the presence of the artist), 2010 The idea of ​​the performance was that Marina could exchange glances with any interested visitor to the exhibition. This moment was recorded by a photographer. The performance lasted 716 hours and 30 minutes, the artist looked into the eyes of 1,500 spectators. All these 716 hours Marina sat motionless.
P.S. On July 5, the premiere of the film “Marina Abramovich. In the presence of the artist” took place in Russia.