Marina
Abramović
september 16th, 2o25
Marina Abramović is a revelation in the art of performance. Often named “the mother of performance art”, Abramović focuses her piece on the raw reality of humanity. Constantly challenging physical lengths to engage with the audience. She places a key emphasis on intimidating presence that forces the audience to confront the piece, often rooted in nudity, rawness, and visceral discomfort.
“I only do something if I’m afraid of it, because that’s the whole point”
Marina Abramović
Abramović’s performance art is focused on the human body. She enjoys the rawness of nudity, often putting it in her works to challenge her audience and their perception of their experiences. Within “The Artist is Present”, Abramović ensured that it was her showing up presently every single time. Not painting a piece or building a sculpture, but instead placing herself as the art piece to personally connect with the audience. As she sits across from the audience member, she holds a warm but unbreakable gaze. She honours the audience as her lovers, and attempts to mirror the pain in the audience member through her own soft, transparent gaze.
“Your ego can become an obstacle to your work. If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.”
Marina Abramović
I have never witnessed an art like Marina’s. Throughout the documentary, it felt like I was challenged not to look away. Every time I faced my discomfort and got through an uncomfortable visual, I felt a sense of accomplishment. Facing her art became a game for me and by winning, I was changing my understanding of the performance.
I admire her use of nudity. Because of how woman bodies are often hidden by societal standards, they are not something that I am accustomed to seeing. By forcing the audience to confront those narratives it is allowing them to see Marina’s world view, unfiltered. There is a fair amount of risk within her work, which could be seen as problematic. However, I believe that the thought and delicacy behind her works protect her, even when they are considered physically dangerous. She has said herself that she does regret preforming “Rhythm 0”, in which she stood still for several hours while letting the audience do whatever they liked to her. It is a part of an instalment that Abramović had done in the early 1970s. “The Rhythms explore the tightening of rules in an authoritarian society, but also what it is like to be a woman in a deeply misogynist culture” (Katy Hessel, 2023). Despite still involving physical autonomy, this was her first project where she had allowed the audience full liberty with her body, clearly a physically, mentally, and psychologically threatening project. However, this work was still monumental to the performance art space. Demonstrating the hostility, threats of violence, and abuse of woman’s bodies by people in power.
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