#Performance
A series of short art history notes inspired by words at the center of contemporary discourse
Before visiting Marina Abramovic’s retrospective that just opened in London I want to dedicate a while to thinking about her extraordinary practice, and bridge the 1974 performance, ‘Rhythm 0’, and ‘The Artist is Present’ (2010), which, when looked at as two opposite sides of the same coin, tell an unexpected story of a movement towards hope.
It begins in a dark place, where a 23 y.o. Marina proved, channeling the atrocities of war with which she was raised, that a human being in a close, unsupervised encounter is always a potential killer. Over thirty years later, in her seminal MoMA performance, Abramovic and curator Klaus Biesenbach, (who came up with the legendary title), achieved the ultimate goal, which was defining the simplest yet most essential artistic gesture of unselfishness and generosity. It's hard to imagine a more poignant manifestation of the strength that art can still have than what Abramovic achieved by offering her presence and attention to anyone who needed it. The viral video of Ulay sitting with her added an electrifying moment of magic to the performance, a moment when we saw a lifetime defined in a single shot. Two people holding hands encapsulated all the risk and love they used to share with each other - and with generations of their viewers.
One could think that Marina’s art is made of an almost military stamina and dedication to art as a mission (Father), combined with her spiritual, christological side (Grandmother) where she performs her art as an act of social sacrifice, becoming an embodied mirror for humanity, for what it is and what it could become. Not by accident, the medium she has chosen to inhabit and defend is, in her own words, a realm of nomads, displaced people who have no home or shelter. Their shattered history, both personal and political, has made them one with their artistic practice.
Why publish these notes now?
My background is in Art History and Theatre, but the past twenty years for me have been a journey from Film, TV, to New Media — I guess the Experience Economy is what defines my professional life nowadays. My work has been so much dependent on technology and rapid market developments that I felt I needed to turn back to Art History in order to reevaluate my outlook on what I do in an emerging field, and what I want to offer. In other words, it was meant to be a kind of therapy for what the futurist Matt Klein called an ‘anxiety-provoking perma-crisis and breakneck innovation’ that many of us experience in our day-to-day professional practice.
I believe the analysis of the relationship between art and external environments (social movements, financial crises, technological breakthroughs), and the way in which art in the 20th century has become part of a conversation between artists, understood as visionary individuals and thought leaders, and society, understood as a collective persona with a voice, is particularly important if we want to make sense of where we are today, to understand how the process is evolving from decade to decade, reflecting the state of our culture, media, economy, and balance of power. Today’s convergence of high art, luxury brands, fashion, music, and technology can’t be fully understood without a context that only contemporary art history can provide.
The notes I made across a two-month period helped me to focus my attention on phenomena that I found relevant or that were relatively new to me. It also turned out to be the best remedy to various forms of popular escapism, from pointless wellness rituals to traveling for no reason to places that don’t need me.