By far one of my favorite performance artists is Marina Abramović. I remember going to the MOMA to see her show, which was an interactive performance piece where she challenged her viewers to sit across from her for as long as they could. She sat in the same seat for hours staring directly into the eyes of her challenger and didn’t bulge. It was as if she were a statue.
I loved that piece because it was very unique and a bit quirky. After seeing this show, I searched up some of her past works and found that a lot of her art tests the relationship between the viewers/the performer and the body/the mind. These tests can sometimes involve a lot of pain. For example, her performance of Rhythm 0 involved many dangerous weapons. She assigned a passive role to herself and allowed the public to do whatever they wanted with 72 different objects placed on a table. Some of the objects gave pleasure, but many could inflict pain, such as scissors, a knife and even a gun and a single bullet. She then let the audience manipulate her body and she quickly learned that people could be cruel and aggressively. One person even took the gun and aimed it at her until another person intervened.
Her work takes art to a whole new level. Never before have I witnessed an artist put himself or herself in danger. However, I think her work is great because it really depicts human nature and how people can be either cruel or caring.
That is an interesting type of art, and the Rhythm 0 performance seem like something worth going to see. In a lot of books, authors show the cruelty of human nature but I’ve never heard about it in art. An interactive type art is not something that I’ve ever seen but I think I want to go now.
I think performance art is an absolutely fascinating medium. I too saw Abramovic at the MoMA this past summer and was completely enthralled. I think the true artistic aspect of Abramovic’s work is her total silence in both her “The Artist is Present” exhibit and this “Rhythm 0” piece you discussed. It is this silence and stillness which allows for truth to really be put on display.
this is an interesting artist for the way she “becomes’ the art work, and thus emphasizes the role of art as a means of communication between artist and audience. Personally, I would not have loaded the gun.
This is really intriguing. I have never heard of this type of artwork before and although I would prefer to go to a traditional exhibit (of say, Monet), I would really love to try this type of interactive exhibit out. What’s funny is that this reminded me of the controversial exhibit at the MoMA to do with the naked people being on display. When I looked it up, the artist turns out to be Marina Abramovic! Here is the article regarding this and what can happen when people react differently to these interactive exhibits:
I think this is definitely an interesting concept, and brava to Marina Abramović for having the guts to do this, because I don’t think I could EVER do something like this. I also found it interesting how Abramović became the art work, while the audience took on the role of the artist. What makes this interesting is that each performance will end with a different result, because no audience is the same.
I also thought that she made an interesting comment about people. Even though there were objects for pleasure there, most people decided to inflict pain. This does not reflect human nature in a good light.