Under the COVID-19 pandemic, how will social distancing affect people-to-people communication? In 2010, Marina Abramovich performed a 700-hour performance art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Artists Are Present. Abramovich, dressed in a long red dress, sat on the side of the square table for six to seven hours a day, for three months, staring at the participants opposite. Two individuals separated by a table, at a specific distance, explore the infinite possibilities of communication in the exchange of eyes.
Born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1946, Marina Abramovich has been practicing performance art since the 1970s and exploring her physical and mental limits in the creative process. In performances, audiences are often invited to participate in artistic performances and are co-creators of her work. Through the interaction between the performer and the audience, the work can constantly approach the limits of the flesh and the boundaries of the mind. In 2020, she will host a solo exhibition "Behind The Scenes" at the Royal College of Art in London, UK, and will thus become the first female artist in the Academy's two-hundred-and-fifty-year history to occupy the entire gallery space with her artworks.
On May 29th, the closing lecture of the 2020 Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts Art Management Forum invited international artist Marina Abramovich to bring a lecture entitled "Artists Online - Picking Up Hope Together". Abramovich spoke with international curator Eric Schneier, who discussed the interplay between life and art, the responsibilities of artists, and what art can do for the vagaries of the future, starting with the constituent elements of performance art. The dialogue was broadcast live in the art headlines, and the number of online viewers reached 340,000.
Marina Abramovich
Performance Art: "Unconditional Love" for the Audience
In Abramovich's creative career, performance art occupies an important part. She believes that a good performance artist needs to have the ability to master space and have super willpower. In judging whether a person can become a performance artist, Abramovich said she didn't need the person to come up with hundreds of ideas or ideas, just that he stood in front of a classroom, facing a lot of people, standing there doing nothing, for three to five minutes, or even an hour. "You can see how this person grasps the space: his sense of security, his fear and his relationship with the audience, how to make others feel his energy and how to project it back after others have absorbed his energy." Abramovich said.
In addition, Abramovich also proposed that the performer of performance art should also have an extraordinary personality, he can break through obstacles and transcend physical and psychological limits in every attempt. It is not easy to do this, the key lies in "unconditional love" for the audience.
"Our love for our partners, parents, children and other family members is very easy, but unconditional love for human beings is not easy. True love that does not demand anything in return is pure, unconditional, and not just for humans, for animals, and for the earth we have destroyed in many ways. It's hard for people to love your enemies unconditionally, so that's the most important learning task: how to love your enemies. Abramovich said.
Eric believes that the COVID-19 pandemic is dragging the world into chaos, and humanity seems to face many seemingly insurmountable difficulties in this unprecedented challenge. Where do young artists go from here? Abramovich said that people usually spend a long time to doubt, and doubt will draw energy from the human body, "if you often doubt, want to do this and want to do that, always changing your career, and finally you will find yourself in a no-man's land." 」
Abramovich said artists should not look for ideas from everyday news and react instantly to what is happening. What the artist needs is time, otherwise "his work is like today's newspaper, tomorrow it will become old news". In her view, it is too early to react to the COVID-19 pandemic, and artists should really look into it and find something transcendent.
"Lover's Great Wall"
"Lovers of the Great Wall": Say goodbye at the end of "Symbiosis"
In 1976, after moving to Amsterdam, Abramovich became acquainted with the West German performance artist Ouray, who lived and performed together from that year on. The two continually explore the concepts of self and artistic identity, creating "relational works" characterized by constant movement, change, process, and "vital art." In the eyes of the world, they were once regarded as "symbiotic" partners.
However, "The Great Wall of Lovers" ultimately symbolizes the end of the relationship. In 1988, Abramovich set out from Shanhaiguan on the shores of the Bohai Sea to yancheng from east to west; Ulay began to walk from jiayuguan in the Gobi Desert in western China, traveling from west to east, lasting three months, a total of more than 4,000 kilometers, and finally ending the twelve-year "symbiosis" relationship after meeting at Erlang Mountain in Shanxi Province.
In the more than 700-hour performance of "The Artist is Live", which was previously discussed, Abramovich looked at many people, but none of them could cause any waves in her. Until Ulay sat silently opposite, looking at each other, Abramović's eyes flashed with surprise, and then he smiled and left tears, and the two shook each other's hands again.
The conversation coincided with Ulay's funeral, and Abramović was unable to attend his funeral due to the pandemic, but she delivered a eulogy to Ulay, saying that he was the one who influenced her life. "We were born on the same day, November 13. We fell in love and spent 12 years together, 9 of which were wonderful and 3 of which were more difficult. We live in the car, the lifestyle is simple and we never compromise on our work. When we were in the Australian desert, we wondered what it would be like if we walked on the Great Wall of China. Because after all, this is one of the only two man-made buildings that can be seen from the moon, the pyramid and the Great Wall, and nothing else. ”
In The Artist is On The Scene, Abramović (right) and Ouray hold each other's hands.
Abramovich recalled: "Of course we wanted to get married, but then we separated, and yet we didn't want to give up the idea of the Great Wall, just as we never wanted to give up anything, so it didn't matter, we didn't need a happy ending." So we can say goodbye and part ways. ”
When it comes to the relationship between art and society, and how artists can give back to this society, Abramovich believes that for society, the role of the artist is "servant" and he must always be humble. Even with extraordinary talents, you should always understand that such talents are given to better give back to society. She confesses that a phrase by Woody Allen still impresses her to this day – "What you start today will become your black hole tomorrow", and inspiration has nothing to do with the artist himself, it is just a message through his body.
Abramovich said: "We have three great fears in our lives – the fear of death, pain and torment. I show these three elements in my performance art. In fact, it's like showing yourself to the public as a mirror. So the public can see my whole thought process from it. ”
Finally, Abramovich said that in the face of the epidemic, governments around the world should take responsibility, "it is often quite easy to evaluate others, but more importantly, how to see themselves".