Featured Image Credit: Marina Abramovic institute
Topics: Marina Abramovic, Art
Jess Battison
The artist who let the public ‘do anything to her’ shared what she learned after it took quite a turn in a different direction.
If you don’t know her name, you’ll probably know Marina Abramović for her work that often shocks people and pushes boundaries.
From once having ‘nine orgasms’ in a museum to spending 12 days living with no food or privacy in an art gallery.
But it’s ‘Rhythm 0’ that most know the 78-year-old for, as she said she was ‘ready to die’ for the art that allowed audience members to use a list of objects on her.
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Tipped as ‘scandalous’ by some, the famous performance started off as pretty harmless but soon turned seriously sinister, with Abramović’s life seemingly on the line.
Taking place at the Studio Morra in Naples back in 1974, ‘Rhythm 0’ lasted for six hours as she provided the audience with a chilling note: “Instructions. There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired.
"Performance. I am the object. During this period I take full responsibility."
And on that table, the 72 objects included the likes of: a gun, lipstick, blue paint, alcohol, Sulphur, cake, bandage, sheet of white paper, water, pocket knife, kitchen knife, red paint, metal spear, box of razor blades and shoes.
It seems up for debate whether it was said that the artist would stay passive for six hours or if it came to an end because the audience put an end to the performance.
Art critic Thomas Mc Evilley wrote that, while things ‘began tamely’, after three hours her clothes had been cut off and someone used a knife to cut her neck and drink her blood.
And according to him: “When a loaded gun was thrust to Marina’s head and her own finger was being worked around the trigger, a fight broke out between the audience factions.”
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Now, it’s not clear whether Abramović would say ‘Rhythm 0’ went wrong as her work was all about shocking people and pushing those boundaries, but she did ask the audience to do stuff to her, not to each other.
So, to sum it up, being left with cuts and scars, she could have died and the piece totally escalated in a violent, sinister manner.
And that’s pretty much what she said she learned.
After the performance, she said: “The experience I drew from this piece was that in your own performances you can go very far, but if you leave decisions to the public, you can be killed.”
Since then, she said she knew where to now draw the line and to not risk her health and life again in the same way. Well, quite the way to learn that lesson.