3/1/10: Artist #6: Marina Abramović

 

Golden Mask. chromogenic print. 2009.

Role Exchange, 1975 / published 1994
2 black and white photographs with 1 letter press text panel

Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful, 1975
video projection on DVD with sound, 13' 51" loop

Representation
Interview

Marina Abramović was born in 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. She attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade in the early 1970s. She has pioneered the use of performance as a visual art from and is compared to artists like Bruce Nauman as a generational movement. She uses her body and others as a subject and a medium. Marina likes to explore her physical and mental limits of her body. An interview stated that she had a scar on her chest from a performance where she laid out numerous tools and told viewers to do what they wanted to her. There was a knife and gun among these, the scar was made by a knife. Abramović has presented her work with performances, sound, photography, video, and sculpture in the U.S. and Europe. Her earlier works were only documented with black and white photography but she now uses video to document her work. "She calls the objects, installations and environments that she has created since the mid 80s ‘Transitory Objects’ - works of art to be used, vehicles to communicate the dialogue between the viewer and him or herself" (Frieze Mag).

I only used the one image which presents the strongest moment of the performance itself, and can therefore stand on its own as a photograph… . The audience can, by reading the text description, and by looking at one single photograph, imagine the rest in their minds. -– Marina Abramovic

 

Lips of Thomas, 1973/1994