A few days ago, I saw "Top Ten Contemporary Arts that made a sensation in the world" from my circle of friends, and the second one was marina abramovic's "The Artist is Present", which seemed to be shocked by her works. In fact, as the "godmother of performance art", Marina has long been famous all over the world, and I have read her works on the Internet from time to time, but I don't know much. After all, I left the art circle a long time ago, and I just held a bystander attitude towards art. Later, I accidentally talked to a friend about Marina. He said that he also likes Marina's works, which is in line with my point of view. Everyone thinks that her works are related to faith. This conversation aroused my impulse to write about her.
Coincidentally, I heard that Duan/Kloc-0, a female artist who lived together in Dongcun, Beijing, studied performance art with Marina after she went to Germany in 1998. Now Duan has become an internationally renowned female artist, and has participated in many international exhibitions such as Venice Biennale and Kassel Art Exhibition in Germany twice. While lamenting that "a teacher makes a master", my interest in Abu is growing.
For this article, in order to better understand Abouzit, I contacted an old friend and artist Duan and listened to her story about her experience of learning performance art from Marina.
Duan began to study performance art from marina abramovic in 2000 at Brunswick Institute of Plastic Arts. In 2005, she received a master's degree in free arts from the School of Plastic Arts in Brunswick. In the past few years, she has participated in Marina's performance art performances many times and has more contact with Marina. Although after 2005, because of the need of creation, Marina lived all over the world, and Duan and Marina had less time to meet, they still kept in touch. Under the influence of Marina, Duan, who once engaged in easel painting, began to turn to the creation and research of performance art, exploring her own path of performance art, and finally became an internationally renowned female artist. Nevertheless, she still hasn't forgotten the teacher's influence on herself. In her words, "Without Marina, there would be no today."
Therefore, here, I would like to thank the artist Duan for his information and selfless help in this article!
Abu has been engaged in performance art creation for more than 40 years and has created many excellent works. Here, I only focus on the three works that I think are the most representative, namely, Rhythm 0 in 1974, Lover-Great Wall in 20 10 and artists present. From these three works, we can get a general understanding of Abu's creative context.
When creating Rhythm 0, Marina was only 28 years old, but she experienced the most thrilling scene in her life and almost gave her life for art. She posted a notice in the exhibition room, allowing the audience to choose 72 kinds of objects on the table at will to make forced physical contact with the artist. Among these 72 items, there are roses, honey, water, feathers and other pleasant things, as well as dangerous appliances such as scissors, daggers, crossbows, enemators and even a pistol loaded with bullets. Throughout the performance, Marina put herself under anesthesia and sat quietly, giving the audience all the power and claiming that all the consequences would be borne by Marina herself.
The performance lasted six hours. In this process, the audience showed goodwill at first. Some people handed her water to drink, while others sent her roses. When the audience found that Marina really had no resistance to any movements, they gradually became bold: someone cut all the artists' clothes with scissors; Someone cut her with a dagger; Someone stabbed the thorn in the rose into her abdomen; A woman suggested that a man rape her; One viewer even picked up a loaded pistol and put it in her mouth, trying to pull the trigger until another viewer took it away in horror ... Seeing the process of violence, the artist's heart was full of fear and tears, but her body could not respond.
After anesthesia, Marina stood up from her chair, full of scars and tears in her eyes. She walked slowly towards the audience and made a silent accusation against them with her eyes. In the face of the artist's angry and sad eyes, the audience began to fear, they shrank back and began to flee.
Such a result, it is estimated that even Abu himself and the audience did not expect. The truth is so cruel! Marina tested the bottom line of human nature at the cost of her own life.
Under normal circumstances, due to the constraints of social ethics, law, reputation and status, people can still show a certain degree of "goodness". Once there is no constraint, the hidden "evil" will be revealed, and this "evil" is the source of "sin" This kind of "guilt" is usually unconscious. We all feel good about ourselves and point the finger at others.
There is a scene in the Gospel of John in the Bible: the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who was caught and told her to stand in front of Jesus and said, "Teacher, this woman was caught and raped. Moses commanded us in the law to stone such women to death. What do you think we should do with her? " ..... They kept asking him, so Jesus straightened up and said to them, "Whoever is innocent among you can stone her first." ..... When they heard these words, they went out one by one from old to young. ...
In the Old Testament, the scribes and Pharisees were people who strictly obeyed the law. They all feel that they are the most sacred, and they want to put those who don't obey the law to death. But a word from Jesus shattered their pride and self-righteousness. "Which one of you is innocent?" Jesus asked questions not only to the scribes and Pharisees, but also to all mankind. In the face of such shocking remarks, who can stand up! ?
Abu raised this cruel and profound question to people in the form of performance art, so in the interview after Rhythm 0, she said, "This experience made me find that if you give all the decision-making power to the public, then you are not far from death."
From 65438 to 0976, Marina met her soul mate, the artist Leo, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and every bit of their life together became the material of their artistic creation. Others are hell. If Abramovich's injuries to his body in previous performances were more intense and thorough, then the pain when they hurt each other was even more tragic. The former is just determination, while the latter also contains misunderstanding, suspicion and hatred split from trust. Because Leo had been drinking and taking drugs for a long time, he was unfaithful to Marina and even beat Marina when he disagreed. Marina also cheated on Leo's friends to get back at Leo.
After living and performing in 12 years, the relationship between Abu and Leo came to an end in 1988. They decided to end the relationship in a romantic way. Marina and Leo came to the Great Wall of China. Marina started from Shanhaiguan on the Bohai Sea from east to west, and Lei Wu from Jiayuguan on the Gobi Desert from west to east. They are getting closer and closer, but their hearts are drifting away. Three months later, the two finally met in Erlang Mountain, and finished the last cooperative work "Lover-The Great Wall". They each walked 2500 kilometers, met halfway, and then waved goodbye.
After breaking up with Leo, Marina went through a very painful period, and her performance theme changed from gender to the exploration of homeland, war, politics, spirit and energy. She was born in a fierce era, and her parents were Yugoslav soldiers. She grew up under militarized management, and with the support of a military mother, everything in her life was disciplined and restricted. She has never felt the tenderness of maternal love. On the other hand, her great-grandfather was the leader of the Orthodox Church and her grandmother was a devout Orthodox Christian, who often took her to church, which enabled her to get in touch with the other side of human nature. On the one hand, religion, on the other hand, politics, these two levels of ideology intertwined collision, made Marina unique, but also let Marina re-examine herself through political and religious works in the later period.
Therefore, gazing at each other is the main feature of Abu's later works. The most influential is the presence of artists. If Rhythm 0 profoundly shows the artist's accusation of "evil human nature", then the work "The Artist is Present" has reached a "reconciliation" with the world.
The two performances are thirty-six years apart. During these thirty-six years, Abu's performance art began to shift from the physical limit to the psychological limit, that is, from the outside to the inside, the stimulating behavior became less and less, but the more he did it, the more he pointed to people's hearts.
On May 3 10, in the work "The Artist is Present" by new york Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), marina abramovic with long hair and long skirt accepted the challenge of 1500 strangers staring at him for 7 16 hours. Many famous people come here, including sharon stone and alan rickman.
In the continuous process of the art scene, Marina did not simply sit there and look directly at the audience. She often makes a key move: whenever a new audience comes on stage, she will look up and open her eyes until the other audience leaves. I watched Marina's eyes carefully through the video. Her eyes are like a mirror, which can penetrate people's hearts and let people see their spiritual journey. It is difficult for anyone to keep calm when they come into contact with these eyes. Many viewers couldn't control their tears in a few minutes. A little boy was speechless after the experience, and another girl went to Marina to undress, and was finally taken away by the security guard.
The climax of the whole art scene-Leo, who had been separated for many years, sat quietly opposite Marina when she bowed her head. Marina looked up, opened her eyes and saw that it was Leo. It was calm at first, and soon, she couldn't help but burst into tears. Then Marina smiled and held out her hands, and Lei Wu held out her hands tightly. This unexpected scene also shocked the audience, and warm applause rang out at the scene. After a series of ups and downs in life, love and hate, the two finally reached a settlement. At that time, the two broke up in the form of performance art, and after more than 20 years, they met and reconciled in the form of performance art.
As an artist, Abu is undoubtedly great; But as a person, she certainly has her own limitations. After entering the 2 1 century, the famous Abu began to appear frequently in front of cameras, magazine covers and even the audience in the front row of the program. Moreover, after she became famous, every time she held a large-scale exhibition, she would invite performers from the studio to perform her masterpieces on the exhibition site instead of her. She began to be criticized by people.
Marina's troubles don't stop there. Although everyone saw their touching side in her solo exhibition with Leo in new york, Leo went to court on 20 16 for the copyright of their works. As a result, Marina lost the lawsuit and lost a lot of money to Lei Wu.
No matter how touching the love is, it will end one day. Only the love of Jesus will last forever! Jesus said, "I no longer remember your sins and transgressions!" " !