Marina Abramović born 11/30/1946Grandmother of Performance Art

2010 NYMOMA Retrospective

Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen)Born Nov 30, 1943

Rest EnergyAmsterdam 1980

Relation Work….Universal conditions:- Limits of physical and psychic

endurance- Gender roles- Identity and EnduranceRest Energy – 4 minutes- Microphones picked up heartbeats and breathing.

Imponderabilia 1977

How they meet

Meet 1975 – AmsterdamKarma acquaintances – remarkable similaritiesTantric collaborators – theosophyCollective being called “the other” (parts of ‘two headed body’)Lived 5 years in old truck – traveling and performing in Europe

Art Vital –no fixed living-place passing limitationstaking risksmobile energyno rehearsalno predicted endno repetition. They blurred the line between art and life…Lived their convictionsOften real danger becomes part of their artistic concept.

That Self (hair tied together)

“Hair is a kind of antenna, like air roots of trees.” UlayBuddhist vispassana…focus upon present moment

Nightsea Crossing, various locations 1981-87

Marina Abramović (born Nov 30, 1946)[Being] the daughter of parents who are heroes is hell.”

Born Belgrade, YugoslaviaRepressive Tito’s Communist dictatorship – influenced early dangerous work.Parents: National iconsPartisan war heroes – fought against NazisMother = art historian, oversaw historic monumentsFather = leaves family, Marina age 18Mother strict – curfew 10pm up to age 29.Leaves age 29 to live with Ulay. “Your daughter has escaped!”Few Performance artists continue working into later years.

Rhythm 0, 1974 (72 objects)“I am the object”

72 objects of pain and pleasure on table.She stood passively for 6 hours and let anyone do anything to her. Spectators to become collaborators, rather than justObservers.

3 min video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTBkbseXfOQ

Why?

- About pushing the body and mind to and past the limits of endurance and in so doing allow artist and audience to find some form of transcendence. self-imposed penances. - Desire for unrestricted expression of mental and physical self.- Early period: about liberation, rebellion…events were ‘life/death’ -Performances were dangerous.- With Ulay: limits of body, gender relationships- After 1989: sculptural works with performance: furniture, crystals - Relationship to audience is essence of performance. The need to be completely open and vulnerable, to give everything -100 percent – to the activity and audience.About waiting – following the lines of energyAbout ritual, reincarnation, Buddhism…meditative studies

Ulay (B. Nov 30, 1943)

Ulay born in bomb shelter during air raid: Solingen, GermanyReal name: Frank Uwe LaysiepenFather died at his age 14; mother disappeared into woodsPhotography age 25 – 5 years with PolaroidMarries, has son – leaves them in 19681976-88 meets/marries MarinaRemarries and lives between Amsterdam and Ljubljana, Slovenia

UlaySearch for Identity 1971-76

Explores gender through transsexual and transvestite scene1969-74 – Affirmations Photographs self – 5 yearsPolaroid 2 years dressed as femaleGet under skin of woman2 year as mentally illTattoos - cuts off body, preserves

Ulay: Something Criminal in Art, New National Gallery, Belin

Ulay takes paintingPoor Poet by Carl SpitzwegWhat does painting mean?

Impoverished poet, burning hisown work to keep warm; writing new works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPZTHXfMD2M

Expanding Space – running into wallsVideo 3 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEQUC0-AlUo

Nude - “If performing, I don’t care. That body is the body which presents the concept.”

Breathing In – Breathing Out (Belgrade 1977)

Breath in OxygenBreath out Carbon Dioxide20 minutes – collapseUnite lives until destruction

The Lovers: Great Wall Walk - 1988

Never to see each other again.

Performance Art

Miley Cyrus - Lady GagaWhat do you call Performance Art?Not theater – pretend1910 Futurists – wild concerts1916 Dada – NY, Zurich1922 Surrealism/automatism1950 John Cage, RauschenbergLady Gaga and Marina

Bruce Nauman b 1941 – Fountain 1966

Yves Klein – Anthropométries, 1960

Yoko Ono b1933 – Cut Piece 1964

Jospeh Beuys – How to explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, 1965

Allan Kaprow 1927-2006 – Household, 1964Father of Happenings

Chris Burdenb 1946

Transfixed 1974

Venice, CaliforniaBody ArtDanger Art

Chris Burden – Shoot 1971

Belgian artist Francis Alys – Faith Moves Mountains, 2002

500 volunteers shoveled giant sand dune, by Lima, Puru.Moving geographical location a few inches.Pushed block of ice through city for 9 hours.

Ulay – A Skeleton in the ClosetAmsterdam 2015

Book launch and PerformanceTake temperature – recordAtmosphere of social settingSome pages of book are pink,Empty where Marina did not give permission to use images.Suit – he was awarded $

Film: Project Cancer 2010

Balkan BaroqueGolden Lion Award – Venice Biennale 1997

Marina and crystals

House with the Ocean View - Sean Kelly Gallery, NY

2 mins: https://vimeo.com/72468884

Seven Easy Pieces Guggenheim rotunda

2005

Every night, Nov 9-155pm to midnightMarina, age 597 works by famous artists“Like a memorial for PA”Body Art not so daring with today’s cosmetic surgeryStomach stapling, tattooing, prosthetics, transplants.Vito Acconci’s Seedbed (1972)

Seven Easy Pieces Guggenheim rotunda 2005

Gina Pane’s – Conditioning (1973)seven works – ‘talk of the town’ because…created among the visitors a sense of sublimation like prayer

Feminist?

.Promotes women Does not frame work as feministRejects label because…“…an artist has no gender”

Fiercely believes in individuality, that women not be tied to marriage, etc. - servitude

Every piece is open…feminism would limit or direct outcome

2015 Women in Art Award fromElizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art

Marina Abramović Institute (MAI) Hudson, NY

“Performance is fleeting, but this place is for time. That is what we will leave behind.”

MAI

MAI – Hudson, NY

Legacy

Together, they reinvented PAPA today – hugely popularMarina “Grandmother of Perf Art”

Marina and Ulay - few Perf artists continue such art in older ages

Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI)

Work that challenges limits of body by an artist, can transcend to an audience, who gains power and confidence in themselves as human beings.

Artist is Present, MOMA 2010

Peabody Award - documentary by Matthews Akers, 2012

Artist is Present - 2.5 min videohttps://vimeo.com/72711715

4 min…Ulayhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLbFugaFyAA

The Artist is Present, a work staged at the MoMA in conjunction with a career survey and documented by HBO, Marina silently locked eyes, one at a time, with hundreds of thousands of spectators queued up over three months (736 hours total).