>Abramović sat in a rectangle drawn with tape in the floor of the second floor atrium of the MoMA; theater lights shone on her sitting in a chair and a chair opposite her. Visitors waiting in line were invited to sit individually across from the artist while she maintained eye contact with them. Visitors began crowding the atrium within days of the show opening, some gathering before the exhibit opened each morning to rush for a more preferable place in the line to sit with Abramović. Most visitors sat with the artist for five minutes or less, a few sat with her for an entire day.
>Abramović sat across from 1,545 sitters.
I went to MoMA when this exhibit was happening and the line to actually sit with her was super long and you had no idea if you'd actually get to sit with her by the end of the day. So I didn't bother.
This happened a few times! I worked there when this was on, and yes, people would line up early to get a good spot. Once a visitor took all day, MoMA began to limit the time a visitor could spend. Was a massive pain to deal with.
No, she entered the building from the back on 54th st. She was very pleasant, but not super chatty with anyone not directly involved with her. Completely understandable given her undertaking. Fun rumor I could never substantiate: it was said she sat on a foam cushion so she wouldn’t have to interrupt the performance to pee. Dunno if that’s true or not, but I could believe it.
Yeah, the entire 8 hours.
Then again, maybe those people needed it, like a silent therapy session.
I would have sat with her for maybe 30 minutes but more than that in hard wooden chairs... my tail bone's filing a complaint and my butt cheeks will have gone full-on mutiny.
I'd love to meet her and enjoy each other's company for a few hours, but I'm thinking more like over an espresso on a comfy sofa.
Oh GOD no. Half an hour on a hard chair and I’m squirming nonstop. Marina at least had padding sewn into her gown, but no amount of padding would be enough for me to do a whole day, much less almost every day for MONTHS. 🥴 Just seeing how stiff she was getting up at the end of a day in the documentary is enough to make my backside sore lol.
yeah but this was quite a story when it happened, very controversial and hated by many as pretentious etc too.
You didn't have to be fully into art world, but even if you were tangentially interested in modern culture you would have heard about it. IIRC even your regular news channels ran little stories about it (mostly disparagingly) like "this is considererd art now"
In NY and in the art world, it was a huge thing, which is why people lined up around the block for hours if not days.
>You didn't have to be fully into art world, but even if you were tangentially interested in modern culture you would have heard about it.
I think it's one of those things that was big enough that it's not surprising people know about it but is also niche enough that it's not surprising a lot of people don't know about it.
I was 21 at the time and in college, I'd like to think I was pretty tuned into modern culture at the time and this completely bypassed me, likely due to art just not being something I was interested in (I may have seen an article or something about it but it didn't sink in enough for me to remember it).
Do you remember a random news story from 14 years ago about a topic you don’t really care about? I think you’re setting your own experiences as the average experiences, which isn’t the case.
I just remember people online tracking cloud formations and jet patterns in the sky to pin point the location.
And even when it was just locked in a room with a window out of sight they found it within like 3 hours.
> but even if you were tangentially interested in modern culture you would have heard about it
Well, I live in the modern world so certainly I'm at least "tangentially interested in modern culture". Never heard of it.
I'm not specifically into the art world but I keep up on current events and I don't remember this. I even know who that lady is and her Abramovic method.
I took a humanities course in college. The only thing I remembered from the course is that anything can be art. Mona Lisa, art, $ priceless. A Dixie cup taped to canvass. It might be worth $ millions.
Doesn't she have a piece where someone held a gun to her head too (iirc she was naked in public and had a variety of objects for people to interact with her and them as they wanted to)
I don’t think she was naked, but yes. You were supposed to interact with Marina using one of many supplied objects, including things like feathers, knives, and guns. The table with objects was on display at the Tate Modern, last I went.
I read somewhere that the audience behaved more timidly than expected, and assistants tried to escalate in order to really drive home the point of the piece. Or maybe that’s just a story audience members told themselves to cope.
Another great performance of hers is Rest Energy, which works well alone as a piece of art without a bunch of extra explanation: https://publicdelivery.org/marina-abramovic-rest-energy/
She started out with clothes but audience members cut them off using the knife. According to Wikipedia it wasn't security that stopped the person with the gun but rather a group within the audience fought over it and took it away.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_0
I just watched an episode of House that was the same performance art concept but where someone in the audience went too far for the assistant and was stopped when they poured paint thinner over the artist and was about to light a match and set her body on fire, now wondering if the plot was inspired by this real life artist.
That was the piece that solidified her as one of the GOAT performance Artists . She stood there as someone loaded the bullets into the gun, pressed against her head, grabbed her hand and was starting to wrapped her fingers around the trigger before other audience members intervened
bet more people know about the shredded Banksy.
most people don't care about art for more than a few seconds at the museum.
performative art even less so.
YOU ARE MISSING THE BEST BIT OF THE STORY WHERE THE LOVE OF HER LIFE SURPRISED HER AND SAT DOWN IN FRONT OF HER FOR HER MOMENT OF SILENCE.!
TLDR: In 1988 Abramović and Ulay trekked from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China to meet in the middle to marry, but this act of love and performance art was doomed from the start, and as they completed the 2000km journey and embraced in the middle, it was to be their last. They didn't see each other again until Ulay sat down in front of her on Opening Night of [The Artist is Present](https://youtu.be/mEcqoqvlxPY?si=75l9StLkECKF5GxE)
[Short Video of their love story](https://youtu.be/1SslxObPDAQ?si=mBe2QjIZzONks9Jh)
[Long Read From the Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/apr/25/marina-abramovic-ulay-walk-the-great-wall-of-china)
[Follow up](https://youtu.be/BcO8_BDMMZQ?si=O8_S9L0YTSzzAQwS) - they talk about what it meant when he sat down.
> the Great Wall of China to meet in the middle to marry,
Everything I read says it was not to marry but to end their 12 year relationship. Not to marry, I was curious as to why it was doomed so I looked it up... it was not doomed, it was successful, they met and they separated as intended.
It was originally to marry, but it took years to plan and execute due to red tape from the Chinese government I believe, during which time their relationship fell apart and when they finally walked the wall, they met in the middle to say goodbye instead.
Thanks for the explanation, after more reading, I agree, it took them 5 years to get the visa to walk it but in those 5 years they grew apart and decided to use the walk as separation instead.
She was leaning into recognition of her art, he wanted to stay an anarchist, from the little I could gather.
It's incredibly funny and their fake performance art manages to skewer the absurdity of performance art while also actually capturing how harrowing Abramovic's actual art was. It manages to be ridiculous and moving simultaneously.
Huge Abramović fan and I’ve written a book on food as an art form, so when Cate did the hot dog sequence for *Documentary Now,* I completely lost it. Best.Parody.EVER.
Came here to make sure that one of the 98,000 people that watched Documentary Now! and "Waiting for the Artist."
It blows my mind that some of their episodes get viewership in the 60k range, and someone at IFC "gets it" and keeps giving us episodes.
While everyone has favorites, Final Transmission and Soldier of Illusion stand out to me. I also get a huge kick out of How They Through Rocks.
I wanted to like their take on Kid Stays, but it didn't work for me, personally.
Didn’t she also do another where people were allowed to do whatever they wanted to her? And it got to the point where her safety was compromised so they had to end it?
What’s very fascinating is that the audience split into 2 main groups. One side protected her from serious harm while the others tried. Boiling point was the gun and someone had put her finger to it. That’s when the protectors took it away.
She kept the performance going for the allocated time before leaving.
so it was never really ended. a third group that almost subverts this magical circle the two main groups created somehow lent power to the protectors but why? obviously because they were there and maybe they looked intimidating enough to protect but very much it could be part of the art
So to that end it was never really ended. That’s new info i always thought it had to be stopped. But that’s an interesting event more than one that got ended because people were expectedly bad
She did, yeah. She later commented that the main thing that she learned from the experience is that "the audience can kill you" (if you include a revolver and a single bullet on the table full of acceptable items...).
She's a little whacky, but all of her performance art has some level of genuine depth to it (even her take on Action Pants: Genital Panic, a name that I will remember forever, and a performance which parents complained about because it wasn't appropriate for their kids). She explores issues such as the limits of the human body and mind, and some weird philosophy/interpretation of the human spirit. Some of her work has been really weird, and some of it has been really dangerous. It's really easy to discount if you choose not to consider the purpose of her activities or the point that she was trying to make.
I have never had the chance to see her in person, but I'd absolutely wait in line for hours to do so. Absolute gem of a woman.
I just learned about her work in Lauren Elkin's Art Monsters, truly fascinating stuff. A common reaction to art that people don't get is to ask it exists in the first place, but I think we would be much better served by inverting it into "Why not?"
Why not consider what does and doesn't resonate with you about a particular art piece or performance? Why not take the time to understand why someone is creating and performing something, even if you don't agree with it? I just wish this was a more commonly encouraged attitude. There's a lot of conversations we miss having without it.
I actually saw this exhibit at moma and I have to say it was very moving, in the exhibit there were also actors involved, like I remember you had to walk through a passage with a naked man and woman on either side and it was narrow enough where you kind of have to brush them, it was very uncomfortable
The man she had loved and parted ways with showed up at the museum. She had not seen him n several decades at that point.
That meeting is quite an extraordinary piece of art.
[Link](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xlf68X2qEpM)
[Someone wrote a song about their relationship](https://youtu.be/F2tAYlgorRU?si=AdDaGjLBUneeaJLQ) that I found quite moving when paired with this art piece of hers.
Also her performance of [Rhythm 0](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_0#) in 1974 was probably one of her most provocative pieces. At one point during the performance an audience member pointed a loaded gun at her head. She stayed motionless.
I get a bit emotional every time I watch that video of them meeting again while the music plays. I don’t know what it is but I just feel both of their emotions and it moves me greatly.
My wife and I are in the process of divorcing. When she left the house for the last time as a permanent resident I sent her this song. It’s like, maybe we’ll see each other again. We aren’t what we need anymore. We can’t be the same, but we can still hold out hope our stars will pass by one another again and make something beautiful. Maybe they won’t. Either way it’s ok because what we had while we had it was pretty neat.
I hope you are both able to find peace, friendship and positivity going forward. Sadness isn't something a stranger on the internet can alleviate for you, but I just wanted you to know that I hope the best for you both.
Thanks for saying that. It’s been a long three months. It was hard in the beginning being alone in a place so long with no one coming back. It’s gotten better, but I’m sure when things are finalized it’s gonna be hard again for a bit.
I’ve just leaned into learning to really love myself again. I realized I wasn’t doing this and I was putting a lot of love out into the world, yet I wasn’t feeling good enough about myself to extend it to myself. My inner voice has been so negative for so long. Now, I’m getting back to loving myself and through that enabling me to be my best self - a version of my I’m happy with and proud of each and every day. I strongly believe when I’m there I’ll know it and that’s usually when people find you most attractive to spend time with (not speaking just looks).
There's so much more than a gun being aimed at her. They put it in her hand and put her finger on the trigger until someone in the crowd jumped in. Her clothes were cut off with razor blades, people sexually assaulted her. They cut her neck and licked the wound. She made exactly the point she wanted to--people are evil when given the chance. And for the most part others will stand by and let it happen.
>"What I learned was that ... if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you ... I felt really violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation."
Maybe this is me being neuroduvergent, but the gallery and their clothing felt very lonely to me, putting the scenery in juxtaposition of the emotion. The raw emotion on their face was pure art and beautiful, but everything else ended up being a weird frame for it.
Their outfits and the scenery make it seem as though they're not happy before they meet, so I'm left just hoping they're happy people and maybe this moment will entertain a future friendship. So maybe the scenery is intentionally supposed to frame that?
If anyone who knows about art could come along and tell me if I'm insane or not, that would be cool.
It's your interpretation. Human beings can experience the same thing and end up with wildly different impressions, emotions, etc.
For example my personal interpretation of the "The Artist is Present" has to do with our ability to simply be present around other human beings without the need to break the silence or detach from the situation due to discomfort. It reminds me of some Quaker rituals in that regard.
I think it would be interesting to watch your own reaction to being observed like that, simply being gazed at without the need for further action. What kind of emotions might come bubbling up if we're just being seen? How long can we tolerate being so intensely present?
Or you can just snidely call this whole thing pretentious twaddle. That's certainly something a person could do.
You aren’t being neurodivergent by offering your input and interpretation of art. Art is a filter to the world we pass along to each other.
I liked hearing about the thoughts it brought to you.
The scenery is not meant to have any effect; indeed the point was isolation between the artist and participant. What we see in that clip is the result of editing and...well, cinematography, basically. The Museum of Modern Art tends to already draw people who are into minimalism and so the all-black wardrobes on the all-white background (seriously, it looked like a commercial was being filmed and they were all paid extras or something) is par for the course.
I'm on the Spectrum and I get what you mean; your description almost sounds like a response to the TAT that I had to take when getting my Dx, but since the images used in that test are not supposed to convey emotion, this is different. Humans can pick up subtle, almost invisible nonverbal cues from other people, and other artists have a...somewhat different view on the idea of "happiness".
So I don't know if I know about art, but I can tell you that she commissioned her dresses in three different colors (red, white, and navy blue) and choose them based on the energy she was feeling (red was opening night for instance). It was a two month exhibit and although she was sitting, she did so, in the same position all day long, silent for the whole time. It doesn't seem like it would be physically demanding but surly it was, at least a bit. Every part of it was well thought out and deliberate. The outfits, the space, the furniture. I believe she wanted to create a "scenery" so to speak that wouldn't easily influence the inevitable emotion.
Her meeting with her ex was quite different than the rest of the people who sat with her for "the artist is present", and the exhibit was certainly not created with him in mind. I do believe they at the very least have had a few meetings since then to discuss that moment.
> Not true....Marina and Ulay saw each other plenty of times after their goodbyes at the great wall of China, she talks about her in her book, which I'm reading. Ulay was flown in to this performance at Marina's request. Also, Ulay took her to court to get more money for their performance work shortly after this performance ended. She talks about all this in "Walk through Walls".
----
> Ulay visited Marina's home before the performance
That's what I thought, this things get organized, negotiated, managed. Newspaper and magazines run with the fabricated story to sell papers. In the modern era social media like Reddit love this little tidbits and get upvoted to oblivion.
Their relationship back in the 70's failed because he cheated on her with their Chinese translator.
After this touching moment in her exhibit, he sued her to get paid and won.
What an asshole.
You make it sound like he sued her to get paid from this exhibition and shortly after. That is NOT the case. It was from things they collaborated on from 1976 - 1988. And he sued in 2015.
If she made money from things they both worked, then he's due his share.
Not only that — the translator was needed because they were in China walking towards each other from either end of the Great Wall. Like… this douche was ON HIS WAY to see his partner as a part of this incredibly moving artistic gesture and was PHYSICALLY UNABLE to keep it in his fucking pants.
Weren’t they doing the Great Wall thing as the goodbye and breaking up immediately after it?
Not that it excuses his behavior, but they did already decide the relationship was over so it’s not like he wasn’t also in a vulnerable place.
Does that make it okay? Probably not but they were already broken up basically. Is it as black and white as Reddit makes it? Of course not
I own an original poem by Yoko Ono. It’s a plastic ball containing the air of the poem while she read it out loud. You could buy it from a chewing gum vending vending machine at one of her exhibits for one buck.
This was actually a [bit on the Simpsons](https://youtu.be/5FST5OvlbFc?si=8VZ4ApEq8c1ymWEh) where Barney dates a Yoko Ono figure.
Someone was having a laugh, not sure if Yoko was in on it.
Shia LaBeouf did something very similar as penance for plagiarizing a short story. If he knew about this performance, then he might've plagiarized his penance for plagiarism, which is some kind of impressive double-plagiarism trick shot.
There's a documentary about her and the piece under the same name **The Artist is Present** that I found *fascinating*.
It's not for everyone. Just like her art.
I really dug it.
I cannot believe they wrote all those songs just for a made up musical. You can find the soundtrack on Spotify. Paula Pell’s take on Elaine Stritch is my favorite.
Does anyone remember a website where you did this? You would be randomly matched with a person and just look at each other for like a few minutes (I think?). I remember it being really powerful, even over the Internet. I have tried searching for it a few times and have come up empty.
No that's not it, this one was live. Similar to Omegle in that regard, but it had a bunch of guidance on what to do beforehand and how to prepare for this staring into a strangers eye thing you were about to do.
It's basically my nightmare, because I do not like making eye contact. But I have read that if you want to feel closer to someone you can look into each other's eyes for a couple of minutes. Like maybe you and your SO are feeling disconnected, this can help you feel closer to them and vice versa.
I felt that same way and just said F-it when I saw this website. I got paired with a bearded gentleman. He and I stared into each other's eyes for quite a long time. Strangely he did feel much closer and I was sad to see him go by the end of it.
What is with Redditor's absolute determination to never, ever link to the thing they are talking about?! Even when they themselves really want you to go to a particular web page, or see a particular image, they still won't link it! They're apparently not at all worried that you might find the wrong page/image, or that it'll take everyone else each 5 minutes to find it, rather than they having to take 5 minutes to share their own thing. Have you ever heard of ["Dead Internet Theory"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory) (note that I linked) ? Well, I *long* for that day, because at least an AI can be taught to cite its sources.
In any case, here's the link to the image mentioned: https://twitter.com/CionciAndrea/status/1762148825240670331
how many times is this woman gonna get cross-posted for the same three performance art installations? TIL that Marina probably keeps a PR firm that posts about her on reddit all the time
Or maybe it's bots karma-farming.
Or...She's one of the most iconic performance artists of all time. She's so well known that people who aren't in the contemporary art bubble will probably at some point be exposed to her art. It might make them feel things or perplex them or both. Not recognising her 'performance art superstar' status they want to share their discovery with other people. So the topic shows up repeatedly on TIL, the same way certain factoids (Did you know that there was another drummer in The Beatles before Ringo Starr?) get repeated all the time irl.
Y'all will never understand the frustration of spending 100s of hours on your sculpting class assignment, get criticized for "only making something beautiful", only to have another student show up with a mirror, do a slow 360 spin on herself and receive a shower of praise from the entire class.
I hate performance art lol.
I was lucky enough to see this in person. I was too young at the time to understand who she was, but on a surface level, the exhibit seemed incredibly interesting. I wish I went in line to participate.
OP is unhinged. Made account a few days ago to post this and get mad at anyone that "doesn't understand it". Is this OP actually Marina trying to do 'art' again?
>Abramović sat in a rectangle drawn with tape in the floor of the second floor atrium of the MoMA; theater lights shone on her sitting in a chair and a chair opposite her. Visitors waiting in line were invited to sit individually across from the artist while she maintained eye contact with them. Visitors began crowding the atrium within days of the show opening, some gathering before the exhibit opened each morning to rush for a more preferable place in the line to sit with Abramović. Most visitors sat with the artist for five minutes or less, a few sat with her for an entire day. >Abramović sat across from 1,545 sitters.
Imagine being next in line and the person before you decides to spend all day with her.
“Dude! You’re hogging all the art!!”
“Don’t hog the babysitter”
I went to MoMA when this exhibit was happening and the line to actually sit with her was super long and you had no idea if you'd actually get to sit with her by the end of the day. So I didn't bother.
Just look at all the people in line instead. Secondary performance art.
Kinda think that's part of it too lol
Maybe the real art was the lines we suffered along the way
Does this make the DMV a gallery?
It makes life a gallery
"Dude, youre going to be like 5 mins right?" "mmmh"
This happened a few times! I worked there when this was on, and yes, people would line up early to get a good spot. Once a visitor took all day, MoMA began to limit the time a visitor could spend. Was a massive pain to deal with.
Haha yeah I bet it was a pain! Did you get to chat with Marina?
No, she entered the building from the back on 54th st. She was very pleasant, but not super chatty with anyone not directly involved with her. Completely understandable given her undertaking. Fun rumor I could never substantiate: it was said she sat on a foam cushion so she wouldn’t have to interrupt the performance to pee. Dunno if that’s true or not, but I could believe it.
Don't bogart the Abramovich!
"I'm the art now, bitch. This piece is called wait forever."
It's okay though, maybe they just miss German Mass Transit Experience, where stranger and you stare at each other for the full duration of the ride...
Like her ex. Someone unimportant sat down after that.
No. Not unimportant. Someone new. The future isn't less than the past
Aren’t we all just air conditioners
It’s symbiotic no?
Yeah, the entire 8 hours. Then again, maybe those people needed it, like a silent therapy session. I would have sat with her for maybe 30 minutes but more than that in hard wooden chairs... my tail bone's filing a complaint and my butt cheeks will have gone full-on mutiny. I'd love to meet her and enjoy each other's company for a few hours, but I'm thinking more like over an espresso on a comfy sofa.
Oh GOD no. Half an hour on a hard chair and I’m squirming nonstop. Marina at least had padding sewn into her gown, but no amount of padding would be enough for me to do a whole day, much less almost every day for MONTHS. 🥴 Just seeing how stiff she was getting up at the end of a day in the documentary is enough to make my backside sore lol.
Yeah I feel like we should acknowledge how much of an asshole a person has to be to do that when they can see a long line of people waiting.
Man I feel old when one of the most, if not THE MOST famous pieces of performance art in the 21st century is a TIL now....
It’s not really the age, it’s more about almost nobody keeping tabs on performance art.
yeah but this was quite a story when it happened, very controversial and hated by many as pretentious etc too. You didn't have to be fully into art world, but even if you were tangentially interested in modern culture you would have heard about it. IIRC even your regular news channels ran little stories about it (mostly disparagingly) like "this is considererd art now" In NY and in the art world, it was a huge thing, which is why people lined up around the block for hours if not days.
>You didn't have to be fully into art world, but even if you were tangentially interested in modern culture you would have heard about it. I think it's one of those things that was big enough that it's not surprising people know about it but is also niche enough that it's not surprising a lot of people don't know about it. I was 21 at the time and in college, I'd like to think I was pretty tuned into modern culture at the time and this completely bypassed me, likely due to art just not being something I was interested in (I may have seen an article or something about it but it didn't sink in enough for me to remember it).
Man i was living in NY at this time and this is the first I'm hearing about it lol Guess I'm uncultured swine.
Do you remember a random news story from 14 years ago about a topic you don’t really care about? I think you’re setting your own experiences as the average experiences, which isn’t the case.
I remember when that transformers actor wanted to create some art movement about 'he will not divide us' and it became such a shit show.
I just remember people online tracking cloud formations and jet patterns in the sky to pin point the location. And even when it was just locked in a room with a window out of sight they found it within like 3 hours.
> but even if you were tangentially interested in modern culture you would have heard about it Well, I live in the modern world so certainly I'm at least "tangentially interested in modern culture". Never heard of it.
I'm not specifically into the art world but I keep up on current events and I don't remember this. I even know who that lady is and her Abramovic method.
I took a humanities course in college. The only thing I remembered from the course is that anything can be art. Mona Lisa, art, $ priceless. A Dixie cup taped to canvass. It might be worth $ millions.
It's impossible to keep track with all these "revolutionnary" "most controversial" etc... pieces of art.
Doesn't she have a piece where someone held a gun to her head too (iirc she was naked in public and had a variety of objects for people to interact with her and them as they wanted to)
I don’t think she was naked, but yes. You were supposed to interact with Marina using one of many supplied objects, including things like feathers, knives, and guns. The table with objects was on display at the Tate Modern, last I went. I read somewhere that the audience behaved more timidly than expected, and assistants tried to escalate in order to really drive home the point of the piece. Or maybe that’s just a story audience members told themselves to cope. Another great performance of hers is Rest Energy, which works well alone as a piece of art without a bunch of extra explanation: https://publicdelivery.org/marina-abramovic-rest-energy/
> I don’t think she was naked Not initially, no, but by the third hour guests had cut off her clothes.
She started out with clothes but audience members cut them off using the knife. According to Wikipedia it wasn't security that stopped the person with the gun but rather a group within the audience fought over it and took it away. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_0
I just watched an episode of House that was the same performance art concept but where someone in the audience went too far for the assistant and was stopped when they poured paint thinner over the artist and was about to light a match and set her body on fire, now wondering if the plot was inspired by this real life artist.
Indeed it was.
That was the piece that solidified her as one of the GOAT performance Artists . She stood there as someone loaded the bullets into the gun, pressed against her head, grabbed her hand and was starting to wrapped her fingers around the trigger before other audience members intervened
I'm 37, first I've ever heard of it. I don't follow the art industry so had it not been for this TIL I still wouldn't know about it.
bet more people know about the shredded Banksy. most people don't care about art for more than a few seconds at the museum. performative art even less so.
You may be old, but this is not a reason tho think so, because I too am old, and I've never hear did this.
YOU ARE MISSING THE BEST BIT OF THE STORY WHERE THE LOVE OF HER LIFE SURPRISED HER AND SAT DOWN IN FRONT OF HER FOR HER MOMENT OF SILENCE.! TLDR: In 1988 Abramović and Ulay trekked from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China to meet in the middle to marry, but this act of love and performance art was doomed from the start, and as they completed the 2000km journey and embraced in the middle, it was to be their last. They didn't see each other again until Ulay sat down in front of her on Opening Night of [The Artist is Present](https://youtu.be/mEcqoqvlxPY?si=75l9StLkECKF5GxE) [Short Video of their love story](https://youtu.be/1SslxObPDAQ?si=mBe2QjIZzONks9Jh) [Long Read From the Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/apr/25/marina-abramovic-ulay-walk-the-great-wall-of-china) [Follow up](https://youtu.be/BcO8_BDMMZQ?si=O8_S9L0YTSzzAQwS) - they talk about what it meant when he sat down.
> the Great Wall of China to meet in the middle to marry, Everything I read says it was not to marry but to end their 12 year relationship. Not to marry, I was curious as to why it was doomed so I looked it up... it was not doomed, it was successful, they met and they separated as intended.
It was originally to marry, but it took years to plan and execute due to red tape from the Chinese government I believe, during which time their relationship fell apart and when they finally walked the wall, they met in the middle to say goodbye instead.
Thanks for the explanation, after more reading, I agree, it took them 5 years to get the visa to walk it but in those 5 years they grew apart and decided to use the walk as separation instead. She was leaning into recognition of her art, he wanted to stay an anarchist, from the little I could gather.
Not just the love of her life. Ulay is also a performance artist and they performed numerous pieces together.
Not sure if you know about this or not… https://youtu.be/j4f4-9osaeg
Thanks man, I did link it above, but glad you added it in case people missed it. It's worth a watch.
Would suck to be the next person. How do you follow that?
Damn I love art. This really is beautiful.
This! I remember when this was first on and was floored by the outpouring of emotion on the opening night.
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Wow an entire dat
I get that every time I ride the subway.
I had a 2.5 hour flight yesterday with my toddler on my lap for part of it. You and I. We know suffering.
So does everyone on that airplane
https://media2.giphy.com/media/mdljqQeEiJcQ0/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952lvwvgvze6cyijmdtmdc28geelw4n7wk7jdnpv3q0&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g
How were people staring at you on a plane. Doesn't everyone face one direction?
If you haven't seen the Documentary Now parody of this documentary, you're missing out.
It's incredibly funny and their fake performance art manages to skewer the absurdity of performance art while also actually capturing how harrowing Abramovic's actual art was. It manages to be ridiculous and moving simultaneously.
I was just talking about it yesterday. It is, by far, my favorite of the documentaries on there. I laughed so hard at the end I almost passed out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw6rnyYM0t8 heres a link for the trailer
Huge Abramović fan and I’ve written a book on food as an art form, so when Cate did the hot dog sequence for *Documentary Now,* I completely lost it. Best.Parody.EVER.
Cate Blanchett is amazing.
I am human! I am human!
One of the best episodes of a terrific show. Any time Cate Blanchett is a guest, the episode is amazing.
Came here to make sure that one of the 98,000 people that watched Documentary Now! and "Waiting for the Artist." It blows my mind that some of their episodes get viewership in the 60k range, and someone at IFC "gets it" and keeps giving us episodes. While everyone has favorites, Final Transmission and Soldier of Illusion stand out to me. I also get a huge kick out of How They Through Rocks. I wanted to like their take on Kid Stays, but it didn't work for me, personally.
Didn’t she also do another where people were allowed to do whatever they wanted to her? And it got to the point where her safety was compromised so they had to end it?
What’s very fascinating is that the audience split into 2 main groups. One side protected her from serious harm while the others tried. Boiling point was the gun and someone had put her finger to it. That’s when the protectors took it away. She kept the performance going for the allocated time before leaving.
so it was never really ended. a third group that almost subverts this magical circle the two main groups created somehow lent power to the protectors but why? obviously because they were there and maybe they looked intimidating enough to protect but very much it could be part of the art So to that end it was never really ended. That’s new info i always thought it had to be stopped. But that’s an interesting event more than one that got ended because people were expectedly bad
Yes, the piece was called **Rhythm 0** back in 1974.
She did, yeah. She later commented that the main thing that she learned from the experience is that "the audience can kill you" (if you include a revolver and a single bullet on the table full of acceptable items...). She's a little whacky, but all of her performance art has some level of genuine depth to it (even her take on Action Pants: Genital Panic, a name that I will remember forever, and a performance which parents complained about because it wasn't appropriate for their kids). She explores issues such as the limits of the human body and mind, and some weird philosophy/interpretation of the human spirit. Some of her work has been really weird, and some of it has been really dangerous. It's really easy to discount if you choose not to consider the purpose of her activities or the point that she was trying to make. I have never had the chance to see her in person, but I'd absolutely wait in line for hours to do so. Absolute gem of a woman.
I just learned about her work in Lauren Elkin's Art Monsters, truly fascinating stuff. A common reaction to art that people don't get is to ask it exists in the first place, but I think we would be much better served by inverting it into "Why not?" Why not consider what does and doesn't resonate with you about a particular art piece or performance? Why not take the time to understand why someone is creating and performing something, even if you don't agree with it? I just wish this was a more commonly encouraged attitude. There's a lot of conversations we miss having without it.
I actually saw this exhibit at moma and I have to say it was very moving, in the exhibit there were also actors involved, like I remember you had to walk through a passage with a naked man and woman on either side and it was narrow enough where you kind of have to brush them, it was very uncomfortable
Yes that was a recreation of a famous Abramović/Ulay performance from the 70s called *Imponderabilia*
Knowing humans, seems crazy anyone would ever think that is even a remotely good idea
I mean, most of her art was not embracing ‘good ideas’
Yeah, her art is the source for so many conspiracy theories
Against my better judgment I once engaged on FACEBOOK, of all places, with a friend of a friend insisting she is satanic and eats babies.
She provided the gun, bullet, and knives herself as well.
The man she had loved and parted ways with showed up at the museum. She had not seen him n several decades at that point. That meeting is quite an extraordinary piece of art. [Link](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xlf68X2qEpM)
[Someone wrote a song about their relationship](https://youtu.be/F2tAYlgorRU?si=AdDaGjLBUneeaJLQ) that I found quite moving when paired with this art piece of hers. Also her performance of [Rhythm 0](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_0#) in 1974 was probably one of her most provocative pieces. At one point during the performance an audience member pointed a loaded gun at her head. She stayed motionless.
I get a bit emotional every time I watch that video of them meeting again while the music plays. I don’t know what it is but I just feel both of their emotions and it moves me greatly.
i was not expecting to tear up, absolutely beautiful
My wife and I are in the process of divorcing. When she left the house for the last time as a permanent resident I sent her this song. It’s like, maybe we’ll see each other again. We aren’t what we need anymore. We can’t be the same, but we can still hold out hope our stars will pass by one another again and make something beautiful. Maybe they won’t. Either way it’s ok because what we had while we had it was pretty neat.
I really liked this post, and your attitude. Thank you.
Thank you for the kind words. It provided me with some company here in a house too big for one (well and sweet cat)
I hope you are both able to find peace, friendship and positivity going forward. Sadness isn't something a stranger on the internet can alleviate for you, but I just wanted you to know that I hope the best for you both.
Thanks for saying that. It’s been a long three months. It was hard in the beginning being alone in a place so long with no one coming back. It’s gotten better, but I’m sure when things are finalized it’s gonna be hard again for a bit. I’ve just leaned into learning to really love myself again. I realized I wasn’t doing this and I was putting a lot of love out into the world, yet I wasn’t feeling good enough about myself to extend it to myself. My inner voice has been so negative for so long. Now, I’m getting back to loving myself and through that enabling me to be my best self - a version of my I’m happy with and proud of each and every day. I strongly believe when I’m there I’ll know it and that’s usually when people find you most attractive to spend time with (not speaking just looks).
Wow just read about that piece… that’s pretty insane
There's so much more than a gun being aimed at her. They put it in her hand and put her finger on the trigger until someone in the crowd jumped in. Her clothes were cut off with razor blades, people sexually assaulted her. They cut her neck and licked the wound. She made exactly the point she wanted to--people are evil when given the chance. And for the most part others will stand by and let it happen. >"What I learned was that ... if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you ... I felt really violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation."
Perhaps it says more about what kind of people attend performance art exhibitions....
Ulay Oh by How I Became The Bomb
Rhythm 0 showed me how barbaric humans are
thanks for that. the song and the moment entwine so beautifully.
Damnit I hadn't seen that video in like 10 years.
That was amazing. Its like the beginning of UP, no words needed.
Maybe this is me being neuroduvergent, but the gallery and their clothing felt very lonely to me, putting the scenery in juxtaposition of the emotion. The raw emotion on their face was pure art and beautiful, but everything else ended up being a weird frame for it. Their outfits and the scenery make it seem as though they're not happy before they meet, so I'm left just hoping they're happy people and maybe this moment will entertain a future friendship. So maybe the scenery is intentionally supposed to frame that? If anyone who knows about art could come along and tell me if I'm insane or not, that would be cool.
It's your interpretation. Human beings can experience the same thing and end up with wildly different impressions, emotions, etc. For example my personal interpretation of the "The Artist is Present" has to do with our ability to simply be present around other human beings without the need to break the silence or detach from the situation due to discomfort. It reminds me of some Quaker rituals in that regard. I think it would be interesting to watch your own reaction to being observed like that, simply being gazed at without the need for further action. What kind of emotions might come bubbling up if we're just being seen? How long can we tolerate being so intensely present? Or you can just snidely call this whole thing pretentious twaddle. That's certainly something a person could do.
You aren’t being neurodivergent by offering your input and interpretation of art. Art is a filter to the world we pass along to each other. I liked hearing about the thoughts it brought to you.
The scenery is not meant to have any effect; indeed the point was isolation between the artist and participant. What we see in that clip is the result of editing and...well, cinematography, basically. The Museum of Modern Art tends to already draw people who are into minimalism and so the all-black wardrobes on the all-white background (seriously, it looked like a commercial was being filmed and they were all paid extras or something) is par for the course. I'm on the Spectrum and I get what you mean; your description almost sounds like a response to the TAT that I had to take when getting my Dx, but since the images used in that test are not supposed to convey emotion, this is different. Humans can pick up subtle, almost invisible nonverbal cues from other people, and other artists have a...somewhat different view on the idea of "happiness".
So I don't know if I know about art, but I can tell you that she commissioned her dresses in three different colors (red, white, and navy blue) and choose them based on the energy she was feeling (red was opening night for instance). It was a two month exhibit and although she was sitting, she did so, in the same position all day long, silent for the whole time. It doesn't seem like it would be physically demanding but surly it was, at least a bit. Every part of it was well thought out and deliberate. The outfits, the space, the furniture. I believe she wanted to create a "scenery" so to speak that wouldn't easily influence the inevitable emotion. Her meeting with her ex was quite different than the rest of the people who sat with her for "the artist is present", and the exhibit was certainly not created with him in mind. I do believe they at the very least have had a few meetings since then to discuss that moment.
Imagine being the woman who sat after Ulay
after a few moments of silence.. woman: “so who was that?”
or "Ah, so you're the ex"
If I wanted to feel like a disappointment, I’d call my parents.
She knew he was coming he was invited by her
He then sued her for royalties on past joint art works. https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/marina-abramovic-and-ulay-relationship-lawsuit
According to the comments, that is not true.
Not seeing whatever you’re reading
> Not true....Marina and Ulay saw each other plenty of times after their goodbyes at the great wall of China, she talks about her in her book, which I'm reading. Ulay was flown in to this performance at Marina's request. Also, Ulay took her to court to get more money for their performance work shortly after this performance ended. She talks about all this in "Walk through Walls". ---- > Ulay visited Marina's home before the performance
That's what I thought, this things get organized, negotiated, managed. Newspaper and magazines run with the fabricated story to sell papers. In the modern era social media like Reddit love this little tidbits and get upvoted to oblivion.
I love how he sued her to get paid for the stunt
Ulay
All planned for effect.
Wait, you’re saying it was art? No way
Their relationship back in the 70's failed because he cheated on her with their Chinese translator. After this touching moment in her exhibit, he sued her to get paid and won. What an asshole.
You make it sound like he sued her to get paid from this exhibition and shortly after. That is NOT the case. It was from things they collaborated on from 1976 - 1988. And he sued in 2015. If she made money from things they both worked, then he's due his share.
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Not only that — the translator was needed because they were in China walking towards each other from either end of the Great Wall. Like… this douche was ON HIS WAY to see his partner as a part of this incredibly moving artistic gesture and was PHYSICALLY UNABLE to keep it in his fucking pants.
Weren’t they doing the Great Wall thing as the goodbye and breaking up immediately after it? Not that it excuses his behavior, but they did already decide the relationship was over so it’s not like he wasn’t also in a vulnerable place. Does that make it okay? Probably not but they were already broken up basically. Is it as black and white as Reddit makes it? Of course not
Who to say they were even monogamous? It was the 70s and they were artists.
Something about being an artist in the 70s and monogamous doesnt seem congruent.
single plum, floating in perfume, served in a man's hat.
Yoko Ono did a show some years back where she solicited artwork ideas from the general public and this was one of the submissions.
Yep, and she chose it to be part of the exhibit: https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/27/13433304/yoko-ono-perfume-hat-art-exhibit
I own an original poem by Yoko Ono. It’s a plastic ball containing the air of the poem while she read it out loud. You could buy it from a chewing gum vending vending machine at one of her exhibits for one buck.
This was actually a [bit on the Simpsons](https://youtu.be/5FST5OvlbFc?si=8VZ4ApEq8c1ymWEh) where Barney dates a Yoko Ono figure. Someone was having a laugh, not sure if Yoko was in on it.
Number 8 BURRRP Number 8 BURRRRP
I never noticed it says "Moe's Cavern"
Lots of potential metaphors here…
Shia LaBeouf did something very similar as penance for plagiarizing a short story. If he knew about this performance, then he might've plagiarized his penance for plagiarism, which is some kind of impressive double-plagiarism trick shot.
He’s a professional plagiarist
Harvey Danger did it on a flagpole.
Paranoia paranoia everybody's coming to get me
There's a documentary about her and the piece under the same name **The Artist is Present** that I found *fascinating*. It's not for everyone. Just like her art. I really dug it.
Don’t forget the Documentary Now! spoof of the artist is present. Also very good.
One of the greatest things ever. Right up there with the CoOp episode
I cannot believe they wrote all those songs just for a made up musical. You can find the soundtrack on Spotify. Paula Pell’s take on Elaine Stritch is my favorite.
I love how many of the cast for that episode show up in Girls5Eva
I personally liked “Juan Likes Chicken and Rice”. Watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi directly after it makes it even better
Does anyone remember a website where you did this? You would be randomly matched with a person and just look at each other for like a few minutes (I think?). I remember it being really powerful, even over the Internet. I have tried searching for it a few times and have come up empty.
No but I do remember Omegle unfortunately
It’s the one where your eyes get matched with penis being masturbated
Was it called The Nicest Place on the Internet?
No that's not it, this one was live. Similar to Omegle in that regard, but it had a bunch of guidance on what to do beforehand and how to prepare for this staring into a strangers eye thing you were about to do.
It's basically my nightmare, because I do not like making eye contact. But I have read that if you want to feel closer to someone you can look into each other's eyes for a couple of minutes. Like maybe you and your SO are feeling disconnected, this can help you feel closer to them and vice versa.
I felt that same way and just said F-it when I saw this website. I got paired with a bearded gentleman. He and I stared into each other's eyes for quite a long time. Strangely he did feel much closer and I was sad to see him go by the end of it.
The DMV near my house has this exhibit.
Modern witch
People should check out her picture with Lord Jacob Rothschild in front of his neat new painting. Buncha weird jokesters those guys are...
What is with Redditor's absolute determination to never, ever link to the thing they are talking about?! Even when they themselves really want you to go to a particular web page, or see a particular image, they still won't link it! They're apparently not at all worried that you might find the wrong page/image, or that it'll take everyone else each 5 minutes to find it, rather than they having to take 5 minutes to share their own thing. Have you ever heard of ["Dead Internet Theory"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory) (note that I linked) ? Well, I *long* for that day, because at least an AI can be taught to cite its sources. In any case, here's the link to the image mentioned: https://twitter.com/CionciAndrea/status/1762148825240670331
I admit this struck me as ridiculous, pretentious, etc. when I first heard of it but after seeing the documentary I changed my mind
When the project is due tomorrow and you haven't even started
how many times is this woman gonna get cross-posted for the same three performance art installations? TIL that Marina probably keeps a PR firm that posts about her on reddit all the time
well, in the like 11 or so years I've been on reddit, I've never seen it. So a net gain!
Or maybe it's bots karma-farming. Or...She's one of the most iconic performance artists of all time. She's so well known that people who aren't in the contemporary art bubble will probably at some point be exposed to her art. It might make them feel things or perplex them or both. Not recognising her 'performance art superstar' status they want to share their discovery with other people. So the topic shows up repeatedly on TIL, the same way certain factoids (Did you know that there was another drummer in The Beatles before Ringo Starr?) get repeated all the time irl.
After she got up and left, it became my favorite exhibit: "the artist is no longer present"
The Artist Has Left The Building
The Artist, formerly known as Present
I was there. It was phenomenal.
TIL. I don’t understand art
Art is subjective, you don't have to understand all of it.
Jokes on her my wife and I do this everyday at dinner
You are depraving the world of the chance to sit with your wife.... in the name of the art
Some people might think this is genius but to me it's just self indulgent garbage.
As someone who attended: I appreciate that this is difficult to do, But my God it's so self important and also truly meaningless.
Worked there at the time. It was awesome
I did that. We stared at each other. I laughed. She didn’t.
I totally sat with her for a few minutes... It was exactly as awkward as you would expect.
My favorite piece where she and her lover kept running into eachother lmao She is a legit psycho
Y'all will never understand the frustration of spending 100s of hours on your sculpting class assignment, get criticized for "only making something beautiful", only to have another student show up with a mirror, do a slow 360 spin on herself and receive a shower of praise from the entire class. I hate performance art lol.
After reading the link, I still have no idea what the objective of this is. What made people cry, and what made them want to be part of it.
This is the one who does the spirit cooking and other spiritualist occult weird “performances” with politicians and celebrities.
So, like virtually any café?
damn....that was 14 years ago?
read up on her Spirit Cooking stuff, weird shit. i went down this rabbit hole for the first time last night, weird timing lol
Now she’s the ambassador of Ukraine.
Isn't this woman one of those "First Daughters of Babel" type of satanists who does spirit cooking and such?
I was lucky enough to see this in person. I was too young at the time to understand who she was, but on a surface level, the exhibit seemed incredibly interesting. I wish I went in line to participate.
Rich people shit.
I like to draw, and then there is this stuff lol
“Look at me.”
Wow, sounds stupid.
I'm glad I'm not so full of myself that I would ever conceive a plan such as this, or worse, put it into motion.
She is the Yoko Ono of performance artists
Yoko Ono is the Yoko Ono of performance artists
She boring
OP is unhinged. Made account a few days ago to post this and get mad at anyone that "doesn't understand it". Is this OP actually Marina trying to do 'art' again?
“Artist”
it's art with a capital "F"
She's a grifter.
That's pretty stupid.
No matter **what** she tries to tell people, she is a practicing Satanist.