|
Marina Abramović (born 1st November 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia) is a renowned performance artist. She began her career in the early 1970s; the body has always been her subject and medium, exploring the boundaries of physical and mental potential.
In 1975, Abramović met Ulay, an artist with whom she shared the same day of birth and similar artistic interests. For the next two decades, they lived and worked together.
Abramovic has carried out a number of pivotal and dangerous performances, including her series of Rhythm performances. In Rhythm 5, she lay down inside a burning star of wood and had to be rescued by spectators. In Rhythm 0, perhaps her most infamous performance, she asked her audience to use various items -- some of them dangerous -- on her however they wished; according to one report,
- By the third hour, her clothes had been cut from her body with razor blades, her skin slashed; a loaded gun held to her head finally caused a fight between her tormentors, bringing the proceeding to an unnerving halt.
External links
- Artist's page in Artfacts.Net (http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistInfo/artist/7066) with actual major exhibitions.
- Guggenheim page (http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/movement_work_md_Performance_1A_2.html) on Abramovic, with image from Rhythm 5.
- Secondary source for the report above (http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0502/blood.htm#n1), quoting RoseLee Goldberg's Performance Art from Futurism to the Present (1988)
|
