Analysis: Marina Abramovina

1318 Words3 Pages

Marina Abramović is known as the grandmother of performance art, having built her notoriety mainly from her many live and avant-garde performances. Focusing on own of Abramović’s most acclaimed pieces, The Artist is Present, it can be shown that not only is the artist truly present, but also exceptionally vulnerable, both emotionally and physically, but also artistically. This paper will discuss how Abramović’s vulnerability challenges the cultural norm for women to be strong and guarded, while also challenging traditional roles of artist and audience. The Artist is Present was a piece of performance art located at the MoMA in 2010, where Marina sits at a table with 2 chairs on opposing ends. As she sits, members from the audience are able …show more content…

As Abramović is known for her physically demanding works, the performance in question is no exception, as she is pushed both to her emotional and bodily limits. By acting as a living mirror to the person in the chair opposite to her, she must remain uniquely engaged in each person who sits with her. Emotionally exhausting for anybody, Abramović also takes a physical toll as sits for 7 hours each day for 3 months. After having performed a similar sitting performance once before, and experiencing health risks and dangers because of it, Marina nevertheless goes forth with her performance. Her previous sitting performance had been with a former artist and partner known as Ulay; a man who was unable to complete the performance, due to severe health risks, while Marina continued performing until complete. Abramović even goes to say, “People don’t understand that the hardest thing is to actually do something that is close to nothing. It demands all of you… there are no objects to hide behind. There is nothing, just your pure presence, you have to rely on your own energy and nothing else.” Under this principle, and by accepting to do another sitting performance, Abramović challenges cultural notions that women are not as physically strong as men. Further she is able to prove that even while being totally emotionally exposed to her audience and physically …show more content…

As Helen Potkin states in an analysis of female performance art, “The notion of woman ‘gaining a voice’ is important to an understanding of feminism both politically and culturally, as are notions of reclaiming the body… performance art by women has sought to dismantle dominant constructions of women… subject resists the assumption of the passive female, and challenges the patriarchal gaze.” During Abramović’s piece, she challenges this notion of reclaiming the female body by actively, willingly and expressively giving herself up to her audience. She puts herself in a vulnerable position, and then again increases her vulnerability by removing the table, all in order to accentuate her performance. She amazingly promotes the idea of the passive female, while remaining engaged and present. She accomplishes her idea of, is she or isn’t she challenging the female construction by projecting her defenselessness onto her audience. This is a most-compelling argument, in that Marina is able to go against female empowerment by surrendering herself to the spectator, whilst at the same time proving her emotional and physical strength as a

More about Analysis: Marina Abramovina

Open Document