Marina Abramović
Marina Abramović
Acknowledgements There are many people I would like to thank personally for their belief in me and my work throughout my 55-year career. I extend my deepest gratitude to all my galleries and the various institutions and collectors who have included me in their collections: Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip E. Aarons; Lionel and Pilar Aeschlimann; Bruce Bailey; Belvedere Museum, Vienna; Alain Berdouare; Bruce and Barbara Berger; Brandstrup Gallery, Oslo; Alessia Bulgari, Rome; Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice. Donation by Gemma De Angelis Testa; Camar AS Art Collection, Stavanger; Angelo and Francesca Chianale; Ella Cisneros; Joseph M. Cohen; Eduardo F. Constantini; Isabel and Agustín Coppel Collection; D. Daskalopoulos Collection; Detroit Institute of Arts; Robert and Renée Drake; The George Economou Collection; Fusun and Faruk Eczacibasi; Ekebergparken, Oslo; Eli and Ole Ertvaag Private Art Collection, Stavanger; Wendy Fischer; Hadley M. Fisher; Fondazione Furla, Bologna; Collezione La Gaia, Busca; GAM Museum, Turin; Marit Gillespie and Kim Brandstrup Art Collection, Oslo; Grieg Art Collection, Oslo and Bergen; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Agnes Gund; David Helfand and Leslie Bluhm; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Uday and Nina Jani; Natascha and Allard Jakobs; Juxing He; Sean and Mary Kelly; KODE Art Museums of Bergen; Pam and Dick Kramlich; Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna; Thomas Krinzinger; Ursula Krinzinger; Kunstmuseum Bern; Barbara and Aaron Levine; Lia Rumma Gallery, Milan; Lisson Gallery, London; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; Luciana Brito Gallery, São Paulo; Joel and Sherry Mallin; Georges Marci; MART Museum, Rovereto; Mirabaud Group; MKSPAMP; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Massimo Moschini and Olimpia Fischietti, Naples; Don Mullen; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Kiran Nadar; National Museum, Oslo; Palm Springs Art Museum; Ron and Ann Pizzuti; Tony Podesta; Mia Rigo; Lynne Sable; Mark Sanders; Gilberto and Rosa Sandretto; Silvio Sansone, Salerno; Danilo Santos de Miranda, Director, SESC, Brazil; Selvaag Art Collection, Oslo; Howard Siegel; SKNY, New York; Richard and Laurie Stark; Supper in Emmaus Collection, Vaduz; Christen Sveaas, Kistefos AS; Wolfgang and Anne Titze; Andrei Tretyakov; Videoinsight Foundation, Turin; Sammlung Wemhöner, Berlin; Wilde Gallery, Geneva.
The Royal Academy is exceptionally grateful to the following individuals without whose help the making of this exhibition and its accompanying catalogue would not have been possible: Tunji Adeniji; David Anderson; Giuliano Argenziano; Alessio Bagiardi; Darcey Ball; Robin Bennett; Mads Bittman; Allison Brainard; Antonio Branco; Tina Breiova; Natalia Buesa; Lorea Burge; Seamus Casey; Jia-Yu Chang-Corti; Marie Close; Tine Colstrup; Lucy Davis; Valerie Ebuwa; Caru Eliot; Caroline Ellerby; Lena Essling; Howard Fine; Emma Fischer; Agata Flaminika; Charlotte Fry; Joseph Funnell; Agnes Luck Galpin; Rowena Gander; Ian Gardiner; Hannah Healey; Robert Hesp; Greg Hilty; Bartel Jespers; Benjamin Jordan; Francesca Kamil; Sean Kelly; Katarzyna Kuzka; Lidia Lidia; Adam Lowe; Elke Luten; Loren McKillop; Chiara Marini Ferretti; Hannah Mason; Sara Maurizi; Duarte Pinho E. Melo; Kieram Mitchell; Patrick Morrissey; Florence Mytum; Anna Nesbit; Linda Pacifici; Mateusz Piekarski; Olia Poliakova; Paola Potena; Salome Prada; Yuyu Rau; Jessica Reynolds; Emma Ridgeway; Michael Rienzner; Claus Robenhagen; Mahsa Salali; Laura Schuller; Leonardo Sinopoli; Agnieszka Szczotka; Madinah Farhannah Thompson; Jaya Twill; Rosalie Wahlfrid; Alistair Walker; Kam Wan; David Leonard Wood; Juyoung Yoon.
Marina Abramović
Detail of The House with the Ocean View, 2002 (see cat. 67) 10
Acknowledgements There are many people I would like to thank personally for their belief in me and my work throughout my 55-year career. I extend my deepest gratitude to all my galleries and the various institutions and collectors who have included me in their collections: Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip E. Aarons; Lionel and Pilar Aeschlimann; Bruce Bailey; Belvedere Museum, Vienna; Alain Berdouare; Bruce and Barbara Berger; Brandstrup Gallery, Oslo; Alessia Bulgari, Rome; Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice. Donation by Gemma De Angelis Testa; Camar AS Art Collection, Stavanger; Angelo and Francesca Chianale; Ella Cisneros; Joseph M. Cohen; Eduardo F. Constantini; Isabel and Agustín Coppel Collection; D. Daskalopoulos Collection; Detroit Institute of Arts; Robert and Renée Drake; The George Economou Collection; Fusun and Faruk Eczacibasi; Ekebergparken, Oslo; Eli and Ole Ertvaag Private Art Collection, Stavanger; Wendy Fischer; Hadley M. Fisher; Fondazione Furla, Bologna; Collezione La Gaia, Busca; GAM Museum, Turin; Marit Gillespie and Kim Brandstrup Art Collection, Oslo; Grieg Art Collection, Oslo and Bergen; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Agnes Gund; David Helfand and Leslie Bluhm; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Uday and Nina Jani; Natascha and Allard Jakobs; Juxing He; Sean and Mary Kelly; KODE Art Museums of Bergen; Pam and Dick Kramlich; Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna; Thomas Krinzinger; Ursula Krinzinger; Kunstmuseum Bern; Barbara and Aaron Levine; Lia Rumma Gallery, Milan; Lisson Gallery, London; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; Luciana Brito Gallery, São Paulo; Joel and Sherry Mallin; Georges Marci; MART Museum, Rovereto; Mirabaud Group; MKSPAMP; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Massimo Moschini and Olimpia Fischietti, Naples; Don Mullen; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Kiran Nadar; National Museum, Oslo; Palm Springs Art Museum; Ron and Ann Pizzuti; Tony Podesta; Mia Rigo; Lynne Sable; Mark Sanders; Gilberto and Rosa Sandretto; Silvio Sansone, Salerno; Danilo Santos de Miranda, Director, SESC, Brazil; Selvaag Art Collection, Oslo; Howard Siegel; SKNY, New York; Richard and Laurie Stark; Supper in Emmaus Collection, Vaduz; Christen Sveaas, Kistefos AS; Wolfgang and Anne Titze; Andrei Tretyakov; Videoinsight Foundation, Turin; Sammlung Wemhöner, Berlin; Wilde Gallery, Geneva.
The Royal Academy is exceptionally grateful to the following individuals without whose help the making of this exhibition and its accompanying catalogue would not have been possible: Tunji Adeniji; David Anderson; Giuliano Argenziano; Alessio Bagiardi; Darcey Ball; Robin Bennett; Mads Bittman; Allison Brainard; Antonio Branco; Tina Breiova; Natalia Buesa; Lorea Burge; Seamus Casey; Jia-Yu Chang-Corti; Marie Close; Tine Colstrup; Lucy Davis; Valerie Ebuwa; Caru Eliot; Caroline Ellerby; Lena Essling; Howard Fine; Emma Fischer; Agata Flaminika; Charlotte Fry; Joseph Funnell; Agnes Luck Galpin; Rowena Gander; Ian Gardiner; Hannah Healey; Robert Hesp; Greg Hilty; Bartel Jespers; Benjamin Jordan; Francesca Kamil; Sean Kelly; Katarzyna Kuzka; Lidia Lidia; Adam Lowe; Elke Luten; Loren McKillop; Chiara Marini Ferretti; Hannah Mason; Sara Maurizi; Duarte Pinho E. Melo; Kieram Mitchell; Patrick Morrissey; Florence Mytum; Anna Nesbit; Linda Pacifici; Mateusz Piekarski; Olia Poliakova; Paola Potena; Salome Prada; Yuyu Rau; Jessica Reynolds; Emma Ridgeway; Michael Rienzner; Claus Robenhagen; Mahsa Salali; Laura Schuller; Leonardo Sinopoli; Agnieszka Szczotka; Madinah Farhannah Thompson; Jaya Twill; Rosalie Wahlfrid; Alistair Walker; Kam Wan; David Leonard Wood; Juyoung Yoon.
Marina Abramović
Detail of The House with the Ocean View, 2002 (see cat. 67) 10
Marina Abramović and Ulay: On Relation KAREN ARCHEY
The relationship of Marina Abramović and Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen, 1943–2020) continues to entrance viewers decades after their separation. Whether it is the tender forcefulness of their romance, their dramatic investigations of gender, self-imposed danger and duress, the legendary relationship of Abramović and Ulay seems almost fated. Take the moment they met. On 30 November, their shared birthday, in 1975 at De Appel in Amsterdam, Abramović had been performing an excerpt of the work Lips of Thomas (cat. 16) for a Dutch public television documentary on Body Art, which never came to fruition and on which Ulay was also working. In the performance, originally performed at the Galerie Krinzinger in Innsbruck the same year, Abramović ate a kilo of honey and drank a litre of wine, and then scratched a five-pointed communist star onto her abdomen, before whipping herself and lying on a cross of ice with an electric heater installed above her. Abramović recalls that after the performance at De Appel, as she lay bleeding, a door opened and in came Ulay to tend to her wounds. He was dressed as his persona S’he, Abramović recalled in the 2022 documentary Marina Abramović and Ulay: No Predicted End: ‘His face was like – coming from a communist country – I’d never seen anyone looking like this, ever. Ever. So half of the face he had completely perfect make-up, red lips, wavy hair. And the right side, unshaven beard and [a] really rugged look. So, it was like a man and woman all at the same time.’1 As they both offered drinks to the audience in the room on the occasion of their birthdays, they realised that they had been born on the same day, three years apart, and their mutual fascination began. In the preceding years, Abramović and Ulay had been developing solo practices that garnered considerable attention. Primarily based in Belgrade, from 1973 to 1975
Fig. 17 Portrait of Marina and Ulay, Amsterdam, 1981
45
Marina Abramović and Ulay: On Relation KAREN ARCHEY
The relationship of Marina Abramović and Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen, 1943–2020) continues to entrance viewers decades after their separation. Whether it is the tender forcefulness of their romance, their dramatic investigations of gender, self-imposed danger and duress, the legendary relationship of Abramović and Ulay seems almost fated. Take the moment they met. On 30 November, their shared birthday, in 1975 at De Appel in Amsterdam, Abramović had been performing an excerpt of the work Lips of Thomas (cat. 16) for a Dutch public television documentary on Body Art, which never came to fruition and on which Ulay was also working. In the performance, originally performed at the Galerie Krinzinger in Innsbruck the same year, Abramović ate a kilo of honey and drank a litre of wine, and then scratched a five-pointed communist star onto her abdomen, before whipping herself and lying on a cross of ice with an electric heater installed above her. Abramović recalls that after the performance at De Appel, as she lay bleeding, a door opened and in came Ulay to tend to her wounds. He was dressed as his persona S’he, Abramović recalled in the 2022 documentary Marina Abramović and Ulay: No Predicted End: ‘His face was like – coming from a communist country – I’d never seen anyone looking like this, ever. Ever. So half of the face he had completely perfect make-up, red lips, wavy hair. And the right side, unshaven beard and [a] really rugged look. So, it was like a man and woman all at the same time.’1 As they both offered drinks to the audience in the room on the occasion of their birthdays, they realised that they had been born on the same day, three years apart, and their mutual fascination began. In the preceding years, Abramović and Ulay had been developing solo practices that garnered considerable attention. Primarily based in Belgrade, from 1973 to 1975
Fig. 17 Portrait of Marina and Ulay, Amsterdam, 1981
45
8 The Hero, 2001 Single-channel video (black and white, sound), vitrine containing objects that belonged to Vojin Abramović, video: 14 minutes 21 seconds; objects: dimensions variable Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives, and Galeria Luciana Brito
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8 The Hero, 2001 Single-channel video (black and white, sound), vitrine containing objects that belonged to Vojin Abramović, video: 14 minutes 21 seconds; objects: dimensions variable Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives, and Galeria Luciana Brito
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36 Black Dragon, 1990 (below) Rose quartz, dimensions variable, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives Black Dragon, 1994 (opposite) Rose quartz, dimensions variable, Tachikawa Monument, Tokyo Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
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36 Black Dragon, 1990 (below) Rose quartz, dimensions variable, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives Black Dragon, 1994 (opposite) Rose quartz, dimensions variable, Tachikawa Monument, Tokyo Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
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52 Energy Hat (Reading), 2001/2023 C-print, 65 × 55 cm Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
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53 Boat Emptying, Stream Entering 2, 2001 Video, 30 minutes Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
54 (overleaf) Waterfall, 2000–2003 Three-channel video projection Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
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52 Energy Hat (Reading), 2001/2023 C-print, 65 × 55 cm Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
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53 Boat Emptying, Stream Entering 2, 2001 Video, 30 minutes Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
54 (overleaf) Waterfall, 2000–2003 Three-channel video projection Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
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8 Dozing Consciousness
Abramović and Ulay’s experience in the Australian desert in the late 1970s, as well as Abramović’s repeated travels to Tibet from the 1980s onwards, led her to shift her interest away from works inspired by physical energy towards those concerned with the mental plane. Writing of their experiences in the desert they described a heat so intense it was almost material; they could do little but sit all day, aware of their breathing and heartbeat, the workings of their minds. ‘The desert reduces you to yourself, that’s all that happens,’ Abramović later recalled. ‘We came to a state of completely clear consciousness.’7 As the environmental crisis deepens and we live through warnings of the dangers of artificial intelligence, Abramović’s grounding of the self in nature takes on more than nostalgic or romantic properties. In an interview in 1980, Ulay and Abramović described how they were in Australia ‘looking for spots in nature where the vibrations are so large it touches on the hidden sources in your inner consciousness’.8 As she lies on land, by water and beneath a thunderous sky, Abramović’s performances to camera such as Dozing Consciousness (1997; cat. 58), Stromboli (2002; cat. 59) or The Current (2017; cat. 60) continue the search for such vibrations. As she remarked of her experience in the desert, ‘Because of the incredible bonds of nature, you just function as a receiver, and as a sender, of certain energies.’9 Works such as these act as shamanic transmitters of this experience, casting the viewer’s body as its receivers.
Detail of Reprogramming Levitation Module, 2000 (see cat. 61) 217
8 Dozing Consciousness
Abramović and Ulay’s experience in the Australian desert in the late 1970s, as well as Abramović’s repeated travels to Tibet from the 1980s onwards, led her to shift her interest away from works inspired by physical energy towards those concerned with the mental plane. Writing of their experiences in the desert they described a heat so intense it was almost material; they could do little but sit all day, aware of their breathing and heartbeat, the workings of their minds. ‘The desert reduces you to yourself, that’s all that happens,’ Abramović later recalled. ‘We came to a state of completely clear consciousness.’7 As the environmental crisis deepens and we live through warnings of the dangers of artificial intelligence, Abramović’s grounding of the self in nature takes on more than nostalgic or romantic properties. In an interview in 1980, Ulay and Abramović described how they were in Australia ‘looking for spots in nature where the vibrations are so large it touches on the hidden sources in your inner consciousness’.8 As she lies on land, by water and beneath a thunderous sky, Abramović’s performances to camera such as Dozing Consciousness (1997; cat. 58), Stromboli (2002; cat. 59) or The Current (2017; cat. 60) continue the search for such vibrations. As she remarked of her experience in the desert, ‘Because of the incredible bonds of nature, you just function as a receiver, and as a sender, of certain energies.’9 Works such as these act as shamanic transmitters of this experience, casting the viewer’s body as its receivers.
Detail of Reprogramming Levitation Module, 2000 (see cat. 61) 217
64 The Kitchen – Carrying the Milk, 2009 Video, 12 minutes 42 seconds Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
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65 The Kitchen – Levitation, 2009 Video, 11 minutes 21 seconds Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives, and Galleria Lia Rumma
64 The Kitchen – Carrying the Milk, 2009 Video, 12 minutes 42 seconds Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
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65 The Kitchen – Levitation, 2009 Video, 11 minutes 21 seconds Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives, and Galleria Lia Rumma