artamnesia

Angela Butt

Marina Abramovic

About the artist

Marina Abramovic, Dragon Heads performance, video still, 1993. © 2005 Marina Abramovic. (http://www.performance-festival-odense.dk/ biography.htm, July 11, 2003)

"1960: Unhappiness. First migraine attack... 1991... Performance Dragon Heads... I prefer to die from a snake-bite rather than in a truck accident... 1994... More and more migraine attacks... Wishing for change"

(http://www.performance-festival-odense.dk/ biography.htm, July 11, 2003)

"Now, the next one is the performance 'Dragon Head' when I had five snakes on my body, mostly pythons and boa constrictors. In this video you only see the one snake, which weighed about 25 kilos. The duration of this piece was one hour, and I had the floor of the space covered in ice blocks. So the heat of the body kept the snakes on my body and protected the public, because they won't go on ice. (video runs: a very large snake is wrapped around Marina's head. It moves, slithers, over her face. Its tail forms itself to the hollow between Marina's eye and nose. Marina remains motionless)."

(La generazione delle immagini IIII - Facts & Fiction - Marina Abramovic; http://www.undo.net/ Pinto/gene4/abramovic eng.htm, July 12, 2003)

Marina Abramovic, The Onion, video still, 1996. © 2005 Marina Abramovic (http://web.ukonline.co.uk/n.paradoxa/abramov. htm, July 12, 2003)

Marina Abramovic, The Onion, video still, 1996. © 2005 Marina Abramovic (http://www.undo.net/Pinto/gene4/abramovic eng.htm, July 12, 2003)

Marina Abramovic, The Onion, video still, 1996. © 2005 Marina Abramovic (http://web.ukonline.co.uk/n.paradoxa/abramov. htm, July 12, 2003)

"My main interest throughout all these years of work has always been concentrated on the human body... It's interesting how the body of the artist can be a metaphor and can symbolise many different things. I want to dedicate the first part of my talk tonight to the artist's head... I'd like to show you one of my new pieces, it's about two years old. It's called 'The Onion'. I'm very proud of the title, it's so domestic. The story is very simple: I'm eating the biggest onion I can find and complaining about my life. Of course, the onion has a symbol of its own: it's made of layers, like life. I will show you the beginning of the tape, then fast forward to the end, to see how it works, because to eat this onion I require eight minutes and that's too long for this lecture. I think this is a religious piece: I'm looking up and the sky is blue. (Tape runs. We see Marina's head against a sky-blue background, holding a large, raw, unpeeled onion in front of her. She bites it, text begins: 'I'm tired of changing planes so often, waiting in airports, in train stations, in bus stations, I'm tired of waiting for endless passport controls...') In performance there is a process, there is always a beginning, middle and end, so we had to rush through that video. And so on and so on. ('I'm tired of more and more career decisions, museum and gallery openings, standing around with a glass of plain water, pretending that I'm interested in conversation. I'm so tired of my migraine attacks...' By the end of the video, onion almost finished, her eyes are streaming with tears, her nose is running, she's a mess, because of the onion)."

(La generazione delle immagini IIII - Facts & Fiction - Marina Abramovic; http://www.undo.net/ Pinto/gene4/abramovic eng.htm, July 12, 2003)

Marina Abramovic, In Between, video still, 1998. © 2005 Marina Abramovic (http://web.ukonline.co.uk/n.paradoxa/abramov. htm, July 12, 2003)

"The... piece is not exactly inspired directly by 'Chien Andalou', but does deal with the human eye. I had lots of difficulties making this piece in America because I had to find someone who would do it, holding the needle for me. Here it is, it's called 'In Between'."

(La generazione delle immagini IIII - Facts & Fiction - Marina Abramovic; http://www.undo.net/ Pinto/gene4/abramovic eng.htm, July 12, 2003)

"Marina Abramovic (Belgrade, 1946) is based in Amsterdam, although she continues to travel all over the world. She has had solo exhibitions and given performances in many countries, including 'Moving Pictures' (2002), in New York's Guggenheim Museum, 'The Hero' (2001), in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington; 'Balkan Baroque' (1997), in the XLVII Venice Biennale; 'Becoming Visible' (1995), in the Istanbul Biennial; 'Dragon Heads' (1993), in La Caixa, Barcelona; Documenta 9, Kassel (1992) and 'Magiciens de la Terre' (1989) in the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris... Throughout her artistic career, Abramovic has tested the physical and mental limits of the human body. She was one of the pioneers in performances in the 1970s, and has said that performances enabled her to leap to other spaces and dimensions. They also allowed her to explore her body in public, upsetting social codes, and to adopt strategies that destroy myths about what is female, the body, its representation and identity."

(http://www.absolutearts.com/artnews/2003/04/28/30975.html, July 12, 2003)

References

Abramovic M. Performing Body Marina Abramovic (I Libri Di Zerynthia). Charta Edizioni, Milan 1998.
Abramovic M, Abramovic V, Avgikos J. Artist Body: performances 1969-1998. Charta Edizioni, Milan 1998.
Abramovic M, Celant G, Troisi S. Marina Abramovic: Public Body. Charta Edizioni, Milan 2001. Body as a visual language. Maki Gallery, Tokyo 1977.
Fernandez-Kid M, Abramovic M. Student Body. Charta Edizioni, Milan 2004.
Mit Haut und Haar. Körperkunst der 70er Jahre. Zu den Arbeiten von Valie Export, Natalia LL, Frederike Pezold und Marina Abramovic. Academy Editions, Copenhagen 1995.
Schneider R. The Explicit Body in Performance. Routledge, London/New York 1997.
Warr T, Jones A. The Artist's Body (Themes and Movements). Phaidon Press, New York 2000.
West P. The lightning-rod man. The migraine headache as heuristic tool. J Gen Educ 1975; 26: 291-300. (Reprinted in: West P, A Stroke of Genius: Illness and Self-Discovery. Viking, New York 1995)

Author: Klaus Podoll
Last modification of this page: Saturday March 12. 2005

artamnesia

Angela Butt

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