Seven Easy Pieces

by Marina Abramović, Erika Fischer-Lichte, Sandra Umathum

This new monograph documents seven consecutive, ground-breaking nights of monumental, solo, body-art performances by the internationally renowned artist, Marina Abramovic, during the Fall of 2005 in the famous rotunda of New York City's Guggenheim Museum. It includes a new piece created by Abramovic specifically for the project, as well as Abramovic's renditions of six other seminal works (by five other artists and herself) from the formative decade, 1965-1975. The works include reenactments of Vito Acconci's Seedbed (1972), in which the artist occupied the space under a false floor, masturbating and speaking through a microphone to visitors above; Valie Export's Action Pants: Genital Panic (1969) in which Export walked through a movie theater in crotchless pants, challenging the audience to turn from the images of women on the screen to a real female body; and Abramovic's own Lips of Thomas (1975), in which she ate a kilogram of honey and drank a liter of red wine before breaking her glass with her hand, incising a star in her stomach with a razor blade, whipping herself until she "no longer felt pain," then lying down on an ice cross while a space heater suspended above her caused her to bleed more profusely. Also included, Bruce Nauman's Body Pressure, Gina Pane's The Conditioning, and Joseph Beuys's critical exploration, How To Explain Pictures of a Dead Hare. In this important series, Abramovic gives us the opportunity to recall, revive and preserve major historical performance pieces, all of which are inherently ephemeral, in a completely original way. With an interview by the esteemed Guggenheim curator, Nancy Spector.

Genres: Art

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Since the beginning of her career in Belgrade during the early 1970s, Marina Abramovic has pioneered performance as a visual art form, creating some of the most important early works. The body has always been both her subject and medium. Exploring her physical and mental limits in works that ritualize the simple actions of everyday life, she has withstood pain, exhaustion and danger in her quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. From 1975–88, Abramovic and the German artist Ulay performed together, dealing with relations of duality. Abramovic returned to solo performances in 1989.
She has presented her work at major institutions in the US and Europe, including the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven,1985; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1990; Neue National Galerie, Berlin, 1993, and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1995. She has also participated in many large-scale international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1976 and 1997) and Documenta VI, VII and IX, Kassel (1977, 1982 and 1992). Recent performances include "The House With The Ocean View" at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York in 2002, and the Performance "7 Easy Pieces" at Guggenheim Museum, New York in 2005. In 2010, Abramovic had her first major U.S. retrospective and simultaneously performed for over 700 hours in “The Artist is Present” at Museum of Modern Art, New York. Using herself and the public as medium, Abramovic performed for three months at the Serpentine Gallery in London, 2014; the piece was titled after the duration of the work, “512 Hours”.
She was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 1997 Venice Biennale for the video installation and performance “Balkan Baroque.” In 2008 she was decorated with the Austrian Commander Cross for her contribution to Art History. In 2013, the French Minister of Culture accepted her as an Officer to the Order of Arts and Letters. In addition to these and other awards, Abramovic also holds multiple honorary doctorates from institutions around the world.
Abramovic founded the Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI), a platform for immaterial and long durational work to create new possibilities for collaboration among thinkers of all fields. The institute inhabited its most complete form to date in 2016 in collaboration with NEON in “As One”, Benaki Museum, Athens.

Reviews

[☆*:.｡. jules .｡.:*☆ · Rating 5 out of 5]

another one that shaped me as a person :o