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A few weeks ago my friend and artist, Guilherme Zorato, told me I should write about Marina Abramović in my people section in 50 and Rising.
It turns out that she is one of my favorite artists and I loved Abramović’s art performance called A Minute of Silence.
The woman in red had dark hair and a long face. She was pretty and forty-ish I think. I’m not sure. It’s hard to tell.
A middle-aged man walks up to the table looking smug. He’s looks so cool.
He’s wearing dark clothes and black Converse (my heart is racing!). He’s tall and has a full head of gray hair. He sits. He stretches out both legs and looks at the woman. The woman looks up and starts crying.
I start crying. I don’t even know who these people are but this is so good. I stop the video to get a Kleenex.
I turn the video back on and the woman’s eyes are welling up; he nods sideways, breathes out and smiles slightly; she looks like she’s about to cry and I can see she’s holding a thousand emotions inside of her; her tears are streaming down her cheeks. I’m crying and I have no idea why.
The man looks like he might cry. I can’t look at the intensity between these two people. I’m amazed at my feelings. I have no idea. They look at each other and suddenly there’s an understanding, a calm. She stretches out her arms on the table and he stretches out his and they hold hands.
I can feel the energy flowing between them. Too much for me.
I’m feeling calm.
He says something to her but we can’t hear it. She doesn’t respond verbally – her eyes are talking.
The camera zooms out and we see the full body of two people sitting in chairs with a table in between. They’re holding hands. She lets go of his hands and he gets up. She wipes her tears with her hands. Someone else sits down.
It was such an emotional roller coaster for me.
Marina Abramović is a performance artist from Belgrade.
One of her earliest performances was Rythm O in Edinburgh in 1973. This was another very intense performance with audience participation.
In Rythm O, Abramović had a table with objects and the audience was encouraged to use it on her. The performance started out peaceful and ended up pretty violent.
Ulay was Abramović’s partner for twelve years.
It’s an interactive art where artists and the audience participate in a performance. It can last five minutes to hours or days.
Performance art can be improvised, directed, or planned out. Some performances are done only in film, others are live, some are all about sound.
The artist’s body plays an important role. Artists may use their bodies to discuss endurance, psychological issues and concepts, movements, etc.
Abramović is the only one who can describe her work She is her own best storyteller.
Marina Abramović discusses her art on Ted Talks
Abramović started MAI, a foundation for workshops where she uses the Abramović Method to join people in projects relating to performance about connections.
References
More interesting women to read about
Grandma Moses: How a fabulous woman reinvented herself at 76
Marguerite Beaty, Blogger, Photographer & Artist
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