Marina Abramovic is a famous conceptual and performance artist. Through her art, she has explored a plethora of themes relating to gender, specifically feminist art. Her pieces are usually a test of endurance and a push of boundaries of the human body as ma y of her performances involve putting her body under physical and emotional stress. Abramovic also has an interesting approach to interactive art, exploring the relationship between performer and audience with one of her performances titled Rhythm 0 leaving a lasting impression on the art world for its statement on the objectification of women. Abramovic assigned herself the role of the passive subject and placed 72 objects on a table giving the audience of her performance free reign to use any of said objects that they chose on her body, in the absence of any consequences. The performance itself, escorted mainly by the participation of the audience made for a very moving statement on the objectification of women as given within the first couple of hours, Abramovic was completely stripped, violated, and belittled by the actions of the audience participators. Abramovic herself stated that when the performance was over she ‘stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation.’ Her performance explores the idea that the female identity in society and the idea of female fear and physical exhaustion as a result of the century long plight of women to build our boundaries in society.
A photograph taken from Abramovik’s performance 1974
Sources
- Abramović, Marina; Thompson, Chris; Weslien, Katarina (2006). “Pure Raw: Performance, Pedagogy, and (Re)presentation”. PAJ. 28 (1): 29–50. JSTOR 4139995.
- “Audience To Be”. The Theatre Times. February 11, 2019. Retrieved March 4, 2020.