An essay by Sara Capanna

For Prof. Robin Feenstra’s course entitled Drama

            “After forty years of being told that you’re insane and that you belong in a mental hospital, you finally get all of the acknowledgements.” This is one of the first things said by performing artist, Marina Abramovic, also known as ‘the grandmother of performing arts’ in her documentary about her latest piece, The Artist is Present. She is referring to the notion that the performing arts have never been taken seriously and, through the extreme ways that she attempts to make statements about society, she has given the art form a good name.

            Marina Abramovic was born into a partisan family where the discipline was rough and the love was non-existent and, because of this, she was able to separate herself into ‘Three Marinas.’ There is the scared child yearning for love, the disciplined child of war heroes and, with time and age, the spiritual adult who is able to eclipse the previous two. Her art has two main goals: to show the seriousness of the art form and to focus on the artist being present in the present moment. She makes a comparison to traditional art, demonstrating that there is much more administration (permission forms, plane tickets, letter, etc.). For a canvas, her body is the medium. She often shocks her audience with how violently she makes social and cultural statements through her unusual medium.

            Many of her performances throughout the years could easily landed her in psychiatric care.  In the early seventies, her exhibit Rhythm 0 involved her having random objects around her, including a loaded gun, to be used on her by the audience however they wished. This was a social experiment to see how bestial the people could become once given complete freedom. Many of her pieces push her body to the physical limit and beyond. Her Rhythm 5 involved her lying down in a pentagon that was lit on fire until she fainted from the lack of oxygen. Her Lips of Thomas piece involved her mutilating herself by cutting a pentagram into her stomach. One of the more extreme ones was NightSea Crossing. Her and her partner/lover Ulay sat facing each other for almost two weeks, in complete stillness, in complete silence and fasting. Given that these three notions are assumed to be unusual in Western culture, she wanted to prove a point and give it some credit. Imponderabilia involved two nude performers, of same or different sex, standing in the doorway to the exhibit and the only way to get in was to walk between them. I believe that this was a statement about the taboo of nudity and the freedom of sexuality. What makes her statements so powerful to an audience are, not only that they are bold and brash, but they are also real. Marina herself has said that the difference between acting and performing is that, with acting, it is ketchup and no cutting, but with performing, it is a real knife and your own very real blood.

            The museum and the audience play key roles in making performance art what it is. The museum, in an obvious sense, gives it more prestige. Also, it puts into perspective what she is doing. If two people stood naked in the street, they would most likely be arrested for indecent exposure. In a museum, it gives the audience an opportunity to view it in a different light and not just as society has structured it. When we think of art in a museum, we immediately associate it with value; this is exactly what should be given to Marina’s art. For The Artist is Present, an audience is essential because they become a part of the exhibit. The Artist is Present involves Marina sitting motionless in a chair, while anyone from the audience can come and sit in front of her. For an entire day, she simply gazes at the people in front of her.

            Who in their right mind would consider this art? Well, all the people who had an emotional revelation in front of Marina would. Society has become a clockwork system; everything rushes by, no one acknowledges the other and pain is kept to oneself. Marina’s entire objective is to force people to slow down and allow themselves to feel emotions. She gives them a simple gaze, but it is one of undivided attention. She empties herself so that she can be completely present in the current time. She remarks how people bring so much pain to the chair and she, a self-described mirror, converts that pain and reflects it back as something more joyful.

            With that in mind, let us return to the question: why is this art? Well, art was made to shock and challenge an audience. Her pieces of work take that aspect to incredible heights. Secondly, the amount of discipline and effort it takes to empty yourself, to slow yourself down to barely moving, to push your body to such extreme limits that you have stopped feeling pain, and exhausting yourself emotionally is incredibly commendable. Just like painters and sculptors have to refine their skills and sit through long hours of pain and frustration, so does a performer such as Marina.

            Marina Abramovic is not just a Serbian provocateur, in the words of Fox News. She is a true artist whose only intention is to spread a message and challenge societies’ twisted rules. With The Artist is Present, she makes sure that none of it is about her. The non-verbal gaze is so powerful because for a few minutes there is only pure emotion speaking through the body. Her gaze provides undivided attention and love to the audience, and places them in a position of total vulnerability. That can be quite a powerful moment to experience. What makes Marina so amazing is that she considers her audience as her lover. She makes herself vulnerable to everyone because she, as a person, is simply in love with the world.

 

Work Cited

 

Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present. Dir. Matthew Akers. Perf. Marina   Abramovic, Ulay,    and Klaus Biesenbach. Music Box Films, 2012. Film.