Hello, my name is Abigail but I go by Abby, I am in my second year here at Guelph and I am in the studio arts program. I love reading, music and my cat.
Marina Abramovic: “The Artist is Present”
Documentary Response/Reflection
Engaging with the presence of Marina Abramovic herself for the first time via documentary left me with an ensnared impression. The combination of herself and her art reeled me in, left me wanting to understand, to discover what was so captivating. To a degree, making me understand the thinking pattern and acknowledge the commitment of her aspiring students in the preparatory work leading up to “The Artist Is Present”. This prep work being an intensive workshop in hygiene and movement where they were taught her ways in performance art in a secluded countryside retreat. That commitment and compulsion of the students highlighted my initial captivation to Marina Abramovic, wanting to get closer, to know, to learn.
Strengthening her captivating, intense and compelling energy in “The Artist Is Present” by directly challenging the audience.
Using herself only to cause external stress to the audience, making an uncomfortable situation. Allowing them to become bestial, raw, emotional, seeing their true nature erupt through a simple held look.
Here you can see some of those raw, emotional reactions to Marina.
The effect of Marina Abramovic as shown has exemplified to me that my initial captivation is certainly mutual upon anyone who interacts with her. Marina and her art radiate and draw in the crowds with her unique and complex character. But that certainly is not the only thing drawing in the numbers, Marina’s resilience to repetition and the effect of time boggles the mind. Asking simply how a human can push themselves to such impossible lengths and to what extent.
Through her patience in the repetitive three months, seven days for 7 hours in “The Artist Is Present” exhibition to the “Relation in Space” work she did with the artist Ulay.
Where Marina repeatedly runs full force into Ulay, both in the nude for an hour straight.
Through being introduced to performance art through the work of Marina Abramovic, I can grasp the role of the limitations of the body, the endurance but more importantly, the risk and trust you must put in to succeed.
Citations:
- Photo One: Marina Abramović. the artist is present. 2009 | moma. (n.d.). https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/243/3133
- Photo Two: Bourne, A. C., Published by Catherine Bourne View all posts by Catherine Bourne, Bourne, P. by C., Bourne, C., & View all posts by Catherine Bourne. (2016, September 23). Marina Abramović: The artist is present. Virtual Artist Residency. https://virtualartistresidency.wordpress.com/2015/12/16/blog-post-title-3/
- Video One: Abramovic-Ulay-relation-in-space-G. Vimeo. (2025b, September 17). https://vimeo.com/163376505?fl=pl&fe=ti
Assignment One: Make a Kilometre
Planning Work
Initial Ideas that didn’t make it past the planning stage:
- Chew something (gum, candy, food) for the same (equated) length of a kilometre and stick them to a canvas – completely fill the canvas with chewed up food (meant to make you feel uncomfortable/grossed out)
- Walk a kilometre in new shoes (buy cheap flip-flops or slippers from dollar store) and then rip off the bottoms of the shoes and glue them to a canvas – show what a one kilometre walk can look like on the shoes
- Walk a kilometre in white socks – then hang them up on a clothing wire – video recording of me hanging the dirty km socks
- Take the amount of hair that fits into a kilometre (a lot) and in a video format showing just my hands balling up that amount of hair into a hairball as I ‘pull’ them out of my head
Final Idea: Push Pins
Im showing my kilometre through clustered push pins.
- Why Push Pins?
Thinking of a kilometre, my mind goes back to the basics, the map, paper or digital, doesn’t matter. While looking at the map, you can see it’s littered with highlighted lines, shapes, and multi-coloured push-pins (digitally or not). The push pins set in to highlight and determine a specific area (can be a pin for food, the bank, hospitals), detailing the distance from the pin to yourself in kilometres. Meaning, kilometres and push pins are common to each other within the same spectrum of thoughts. They almost pin down the kilometres themselves essentially in a more poetic way, holding down a distance common to us.
Some photo examples of push pins on paper and digital maps:
- Equating Push Pins With One Kilometre:
Taking from this observation, and knowing I need to downsize, I measured out the length of a single common push pin – 2.54 cm – And trying to figure out how many of those 2.54cm sized pushed pins could equate to one kilometre (which is 1000m), I divided the kilometre (1000m) by the push pin (2.54cm) and found out that roughly 394 push pins equated the length of one kilometre, equally as sized down.
- How I’m going to show One Kilometre (Step by Step)
Make a 8.5mm x 5.7mm sized base out of styrofoam – inspired by topographic relief maps for the base, use air dry clay to sculpt out rough terrain then paint it black
Topographic relief maps like these examples here.
Initial Steps/photo’s of my topographical inspired base:
Then clustering up the 394 multi-coloured push pins, to similarly look like a highly popularized area on the map – fill until no black is showing through
like this example:
To look like this (mine):
Final Piece:
(add popsicle stick supports to the sides of the base and paint black)
I am left with a texturized, and visually appealing piece that perfectly equates and reframes the broader ideas of a kilometre.
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