• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • Lad Files
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Extinct
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
Artist 'ready to die' after letting spectators do anything to her made major admission about stunt more than 45 years later

Home> Community

Updated 07:49 12 May 2025 GMT+1Published 16:38 18 Nov 2024 GMT

Artist 'ready to die' after letting spectators do anything to her made major admission about stunt more than 45 years later

The stunt revealed the dark side of human nature

Brenna Cooper

Brenna Cooper

Featured Image Credit: (YouTube/Marina Abramović Institute/WeTransfer)

Topics: Art, Community, History, Marina Abramović

Brenna Cooper
Brenna Cooper

Brenna Cooper is a journalist at LADbible. She graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in History, followed by an NCTJ accredited masters in Journalism. She began her career as a freelance writer for Digital Spy, where she wrote about all things TV, film and showbiz. Her favourite topics to cover are music, travel and any bizarre pop culture.

X

@_brencoco

Advert

Advert

Advert

A performance artist who once felt 'ready to die' after an extreme stunt, which allowed spectators to do anything they wanted to her, has since made a major admission about the piece.

Allowing random members of the public to do whatever they wanted to your body for six hours sounds like the stuff of nightmares to most of us. However, for Marina Abramović, this was a stunt in which she willingly participated in.

Titled 'Rhythm 0', the 1974 six-hour long endurance art performance saw Abramović stand in-front of a table containing 72 different items.

The performance started off relatively tame (Marina Abramović Institute)
The performance started off relatively tame (Marina Abramović Institute)

Advert

The premise of the experiment was simple: how far would a person go in a situation where they faced no consequences to their actions?

Well, turns out people are willing to take things pretty far.

The performance is said to have started out rather peacefully, with spectators handing Abramović a rose, turning her around.

However, things would later take a pretty sinister turn.

As the six-hour experiment rolled on, more people grew bold in what they were willing to do, with spectators stripping the artist of her clothes, while others cut at her skin with razor blades.

Advert

By the end of the performance, art critic Thomas McEvilley recalled a fight breaking out among spectators after a loaded gun was pointed at the artist's head as other viewers rushed to defend her.

Abramović would later sum the whole performance up in pretty chilling terms, telling The Guardian during a 2014 interview that she was even 'ready to die' at certain points.

However she would later be subjected to more extreme actions from the crowd (Marina Abramović Institute)
However she would later be subjected to more extreme actions from the crowd (Marina Abramović Institute)

"I had a pistol with bullets in it, my dear. I was ready to die, she reflected. Fortunately Abramović would walk away from the performance with her life, as well as a deeper understanding about the true darkness of human nature.

"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," she said of the piece in a separate interview.

Advert

Considering how close she came to death the first time round, you'd imagine that Abramović wouldn't be rushing to repeat the performance anytime soon - however, this is surprisingly not the case.

Despite coming close to death, Abramović isn't against re-performing the piece (YouTube/WeTransfer)
Despite coming close to death, Abramović isn't against re-performing the piece (YouTube/WeTransfer)

During a more recent interview, the artist revealed that she was not only willing to re-perform Rhythm 0, but had also hoped to take the piece to America.

However, there would turn out to be a few legal issues involved.

"I actually want to repeat this performance," she said.

Advert

"They didn't give it to me, all the lawyers went crazy... You see in America they're really going to use it [the objects]."

Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise the stunt wasn't allowed then.

Choose your content:

an hour ago
2 hours ago
5 hours ago
7 hours ago
  • Starz EntertainmentStarz Entertainment
    an hour ago

    Study finds you're more likely to be a psychopath if you had these three traits as a child

    There are three traits you should look out for in children that could indicate psychopathy

    Community
  • Google MapsGoogle Maps
    2 hours ago

    Google Maps users claim they've found an 'alien base' under a cliff in Antarctica

    A disc-like object has been spotted by conspiracy theorists in Antarctica

    Community
  • Instagram/jamesenglish_podcast_clipsInstagram/jamesenglish_podcast_clips
    5 hours ago

    Woman who claims she's a ‘witch’ shares incredibly disturbing moment from ‘cult ritual’

    The witch claimed she saw something horrific while she was part of a cult

    Community
  • FacebookFacebook
    7 hours ago

    Woman hits back as she is accused of trying to ‘change race’ after tattooing 90% of body

    Mariana Knapitsch has hit out at 'dumb people' who have targeted her online

    Community
  • Artist who was 'ready to die' after letting spectators do anything to her reveals horrific moment it went wrong
  • Artist 'ready to die' after letting spectators do anything to her for six hours shared long-term impact it had
  • What happened to artist who was ‘ready to die’ after letting spectators do anything to her for six hours
  • Artist was ‘ready to die’ after she let spectators do anything to her for six hours in extreme act