Marina Abramović

Hi there! Welcome, welcome to the very first episode of the podcast Exhibitionistus. So let me tell you a bit about us. We are two art lovers, one who happens to be an art curator and the other who is not at all professionally involved in art. I am the irritating know it all, Joanna Pierre Nevis, and Emily Harding is the other co-host. So in this episode, we look back on a blockbuster of 2023, Marina Abramovich at the Royal Academy. We talk about so many things, from the advantages and disadvantages of performance reenactments to Emily actually having done her own kind of performance in the exhibition. You will see. So just a little comment about the fact that after we recorded this episode, Abramovich's foray into cosmetics came to light, and I'm actually really glad we did not know about it. It's all over Instagram and the press and people don't know what to make of it. Anyway, without further ado, welcome to the very first episode of Exhibitionists, where we visit exhibitions so that you absolutely have to. Because it's such a pleasure, and the biggest pleasure of all talking about it. Hello and welcome to the Exhibitionists Podcast, where we explore the work of an artist through their solo exhibition. We visit exhibitions so that you have to. I am the co-host of this podcast. My name is Joanna Pierre Nevis, and I'm a contemporary art curator and writer.

And I'm Emily Harding. I'm an art lover and Joanna's friend. So we decided to do this because we love having a good chin wag about exhibitions after we go and see them. And we wanted to share it with you. So every other week we'll talk about an exhibition we have both seen separately, and one of us will share the backstory about the artist. So, Joanna, do you want to introduce the artist for this episode for our listeners?

Yes, absolutely. But first of all, I want to say I'm so happy to be doing this with you, Emily. It's really, really fun to be able to share our conversations with our listeners.

This is our very first episode. It's amazing. I know, and what an episode. I mean, I just cannot wait to dig in.

We're in it for a ride. So we're talking about the, I think one of the most important exhibitions of 2023. Marina Abramovich at the Royal Academy from the 23rd of September 2023 until the 1st of January 2024. So it the last day. Yesterday, we're recording on the 2nd of January, was the last day of the exhibition. So Marina Abramovich was a pioneering performance artist that risked her life to push the boundaries of the art form. And it is safe to say that she lived a drama-filled life. She is called the grandmother of performance art, but there's so much to her. So she was born in 1946 in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia. She says that she feels like she belongs to a country that no longer exists. She doesn't feel Serbian. And she had a very disciplined upbringing. She described her upbringing as being raised to be a soldier. Wow. So her parents were very harsh, very severe, very emotionless. She was never kissed by her mum. She was at times physically punished for supposedly showing off. She could not bring any friends home. And her parents, by the way, were national heroes. So they were part of Tito's partisans. They worked for the government. But then at home it was a very difficult environment. No cuddles. Man, that's rough. No cuddles. And do you know until until what age this went on? Uh tell me. Well, until 29. 29 she had a curfew. Stop it.

That's funny. That's like this generation sort of gets the you know the the flack of being too cuddled and too mothered, and it's like, wow, a curfew of 10 when you're 29.

Yeah, she had a first husband, I forget his name, he was also an artist, but she was still at her mum's house. And she so until so, of course, obviously she was already a performing artist when she was, you know, under this very strict curfew rule, and she would be then out and about, whipping herself, fainting from the fumes of a performance, and then would go straight home. There's even a little anecdote which I find really funny. So she did a performance where she was inside a five-pointed cross that she set on fire with petrol, and the fumes were so intense that she ended up fainting. She burnt herself, she had to cut her hair and uh clipped her at her nails, and someone in the audience, a doctor, had to rescue her. So she was all burnt. Her hair was a mess. She flew home, and when she got up in the morning, she went to the kitchen to have breakfast in a state, and apparently her grandmother was holding a tray that she dropped on the floor when she saw Marina's weird state.

I bet she was a sight. So it's like you're there, you're pushing your art form to the limits, you're putting your body on the line, literally being saved from death. And your first thought is, I've got a dash home, I have a 10 o'clock curfew. I mean, that says so much about her upbringing. But it does say a lot about her work as well.

So fear not, in 1975, she went to Amsterdam to do a performance called Thomas Lips, and that's when she finally left her country and led a completely different kind of life. Thomas Lips is a performance where she does a lot of things, including cutting a five-pointed cross on her stomach and whipping herself violently. And the German artist Ole attended to her wounds and started the relationship that would last for 13 years. That's a meat cute of the ages. Listen, there's no other story like this one. That sounds just like how Peter and I met, you know? It's love, it's love and work because they actually started not only a personal relationship, but also a work relationship. It was a complete, complete partnership that would actually notoriously end when they both walked towards each other in Great Wolf China. Their meeting point was also the last goodbye. So that's how they ended, you know, they decided to separate, which again, you know, after that meet cute, you have the the voice of the century as well. Yeah, right.

It sort of bookended with a drama.

But what is interesting, you know, Emily, about the Abramovich Ule partnership is that they, of course, you know, Abramovich's work was very influenced by the 60s. She was influenced by Jan Palanch's uh self-immolation in Prague in reaction to the Soviets. But she, in this, well, when she met Ule, she already had a complete body of works. She was an artist in her own right. But then when they got together, the work became about the male-female relationships through these very intense, sometimes violent actions that were uh long in time, they were about endurance. But so after the separation, um, she went on to have a solo career. She remained in Amsterdam for a number of years, but she now considers herself to be a nomadic artist. In 1997, she was awarded the International Prize at the Venice Biennial for a work called Balkan Baroque, which is part of the Royal Academy exhibition.

Right, really kind of remarkable room for sure.

It's a very intense room, isn't it?

Yeah.

Another thing, you know, that's so admirable about her is that her career has in terms of performance, and and and her performance in particular is so draining, but she continues to do it. She's not 77 years old, and she continues to surprise us actually with performance.

It's incredible. Because she was just prolific and relentless with her output throughout her 50 plus year career. Super impressive.

I can only imagine when they separated the pressure that she had of you know, uh people asking, oh, what is she going to do next? You know, especially being a woman. You know, when there's a duo of artists, there's always this question of who does the work. Jack White, Meg White, classic example. Our classic reference. Our listeners will get used to Jack White references, I think. But so um her, so she had her retrospective exhibition in 2010 at the Museum of Modern Art, which was called The Artist Is Present. And this placed her in the mainstream and popular culture.

Yeah, sorry, this is my first awareness of her for sure.

People, I mean, heard of her at least, know her name through this exhibition, where she allowed other performers to reenact her performances. So for the history of performance, this is really important, and this is one of the major contributions. I mean, there are so many by this artist to performance and to the history of performance. She is, by the way, Emily, as you know, very militant about performance. She really is someone who defends performance as an art form.

I mean, I guess, yeah, I mean, that that warrior-soldier upbringing and that discipline that was imbued within her from her mother, you know, that has really endured. It's it's pretty incredible.

Listen, The Artist is Present was even adapted by Jay-Z for a music video. Yeah, that's so cool. I had no idea.

Yeah, I had no idea about this until you mentioned it, and then I looked it up, and it is amazing to watch it. But yeah.

And she obviously became friends with Lady Gaga when you think of it. You know, people don't know this, but Lady Gaga's meet dress at whatever event it was, I have no idea. She was inspired by Janna Sterbach, who was also a very important performance artist. Lady Gaga is very, very knowledgeable, and she's really, really attentive to whatever's going on in the art world. Another thing to say about the exhibition is that people queued outside of the museum and even slept in the streets to have a chance to participate in the performance. And an eponymous uh documentary was made about the details of the preparation and the duration of the performance, which was 75 days sitting facing members of the audience one by one. And at this time, she's already about 62 years old.

So I I would have happily been in that line.

Well, you know, I have a little anecdote speaking of being in the presence of Marina Ramovich because she had an exhibition in 2014 here in London at the Serpentine Gallery, and I went there with my daughter. You know, you were saying when we're talking about the exhibition that when you went there, you suddenly thought, oh, wait a minute, this is performance. Yeah, yeah.

Is she going to be there? Yeah, yeah, totally.

Yeah. So she was present. She was there at the I think the the exhibition was called 512 hours, something like this, which again is what she usually does. She did the same at the MOMA, which is to um to state the number of hours that she will be present during the exhibition. There were tables with rice, you know, all the exercises she does to prepare her performers. And my daughter was there with me, and she was um she had a bellache, and so she was um crouching against the wall. And Marina Abramovich took her hand and put her to sleep in one of the areas of the exhibition and gave her a hug, I think. Way.

Oh, she gave her a cuddle, even though she was not cuddled. Oh, amazing. Wow, incredible. Wow, so she so she saw your daughter. Was it? I mean, it's hard to imagine what this exhibition was like. It was like, was she among the people who were visiting the exhibition, or was she somehow kept separate?

No, she was always there, walking around. So because there were different areas, she guided a few people she connected with, I suppose, or she felt needed help. So she was always there, it was quite impressive because there you were counting grains of rice, and Marina was looking at you. It was I have to say, my memory of it is kind of a blur because I was in a state of excitement, not only for myself, but for my daughter. I was just watching her, which in itself is an experience, isn't it? It is the experience of the exhibition when you go as a mum with your daughter, and then Marina Abramovich takes care of your daughter. It's I think sometimes we have a very restrictive idea of what it is to visit an exhibition or what you take from an exhibition. And that's what I took from it. I wasn't that interested in the exercises, um, but I was so interested to see the interaction between Abramovich, my daughter, and then my daughter with the work. It was really and to see what other people were doing as well. It's it's interesting how the the kind of impact an exhibition can have on you.

Especially performance, yeah, because it's so ephemeral, right? I mean, even this exhibition that she had at the RA, if you go more than once, you're gonna have a very different experience because it's all about what's happening in that moment. Like a like a concert, you know, like music. I mean, it's like it's never ever the same, the same deal.

By the way, Emily, don't you think we should uh say it is the first exhibition of a female artist in the main galleries of the Royal Academy.

Yeah, shocking. I mean, it is 20, well, it was 2023, it is now 2024, but yeah, it's incredible that they have, you know, they're 200 years old, DRA. And in 200 years, and this is the first time that they're having a solo show for a woman in their main galleries. It's very long over the yeah.

And I hope they learned I hope they learned the lesson because it was full of people.

It was really, really popular. And it's it's not cheap either. I mean, 23 quid. That really shows you a lot about the appetite for for performance and kind of the excitement of having an experience like that with an artist.

Maybe in the case of performance, if we're thinking about going back, as you referenced, I think it's really important to think about maybe a ticket that would allow you to go in a second time for free.

Yeah.

Because it's so expensive and you can't see the whole show. Maybe you'd like to introduce the show a little bit, by the way.

You know, the exhibition is a retrospective, so it aims to include major pieces of her work throughout her 50 plus year of performance art. So, really, really ambitious, especially considering, as we've noted, she wasn't there herself. Yeah, I mean, I as I walked in, I was considering this. I didn't really consider this fact that she may not be there until I bought my ticket. And then I was like, well, I wonder how impactful this is gonna be. You know, how much am I gonna really feel this through images and video? And I hadn't realized at the time that there would be people replicating her performances. But in any case, there are some performance artists there that are replicating some of her previous work, so you get some of that immediacy. So super, super ambitious aim for the show. So it's not chronological. It starts with that, you know, that very famous piece that you mentioned from 2010 at the MOMA, the artist is present. And then you go through that room immediately into rhythm zero, which is something she performed in 1974, and for me was certainly the most memorable and disturbing piece of work in the exhibition. I mean, beyond that, it deals with her response to communism, her parents, the bloody war in the Balkans of the 90s. There's a huge section of the work that she performed with Oule, which is obviously a significant room, rooms really.

Um I think that for me, that was the room that I found the most impactful in the sense that you have archival images, you have video, black and white videos, you know, you can only imagine technology was not the same at the time in the 70s and beginning of the 80s, and the way it was displayed, and you know, I don't know if you had the same um experience of it, but when I got into the room, I I I couldn't hear anything. I was talking with my friends, and the this the the sound experience was not overwhelming at all, when especially when you think that you have like, I don't know, 15 videos over there, more. And then as I started watching the videos and coming back to the beginning, I mean to where you enter, I could hear all the videos at the same time, and it was a sort of cacophony, which wasn't the experience as I went in, which tells you a lot about how experience and how your senses work, how augmented the experience, the sensorial experience of an exhibition can be. I thought the room was was really impressive.

Yeah, and that is where I was getting shaken down by security. So, I mean, I probably didn't necessarily notice the cacophony. So this is uh this is all Emily was taking pictures. Emily was taking pictures of the naked people. I was guilty as charged. So I was taking pictures throughout the exhibition for the podcast, so I could sort of remember things that stuck out. And I walked into the room, the you know, the Ule and Marina room, and they have um a performance artist reproducing Imponderabilia, which is the doorway where you have two naked people facing each other, and attendees are invited to walk through. And this is something that she and Ule did in the 70s, and it's being recreated here. I walk into the room and I just hold my phone up like I'm at a concert and take a picture from afar. Okay, I just want to say it was discreet, and but obviously I was not discreet in taking the picture because anybody with eyes could have seen what I was doing. I was not trying to be sly because I had no idea that it wasn't acceptable to do so. I didn't see the sign. And so, yeah, so the two security people come over and they were like, delete that off your phone, delete that off your phone. So I was like, Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm an idiot, you know. Absolutely, I'll delete it off my phone. So I open up my photos and there was only one. They were like, Where's the rest of them? And I'm like, I just took the one. Oh my god. So did they go over your pictures? Did they they ask to see your your other pictures? So yeah, they they kind of scrolled through a bit to make sure that I didn't have any other contraband on my phone.

So can you imagine if you had had naked Emily and naked Peter in the they would have been like, delete those?

No, no, no, that's me. I don't think anyone would have confused Peter and I with these gorgeous naked people that were at this exhibition, you know, not not not dissing us, you know, but yeah, that there wouldn't have been any confusion there. But yeah, so then they yeah, and then they got their boss over, and you know, he showed me how to delete from the deleted section, which I actually had no idea it was a thing you could do. And as these two security guards were getting like a little bit, like a little bit in my face, you know. I did ask them at one point, could you please just take a step back because they were all over me and all over my phone? Um, Peter was gone. He was not to be found. If there were naked people in the room, he was otherwise uh just he was drawn. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So why why do you think that you um we have that discussion with my friends that that I went with and my daughter? Why do you think they that you can't take pictures of the performers? Because they are filmed. I mean, they are in the catalogue, they're in, you know, in in exhibition in at least you know in the documentary the artist is present, you see the performers. So why do you think we can't take pictures of them?

I mean, I guess it's about control of the image, right? I mean, yes, they're being filmed, but they're being the filmed in the way that the artists maybe have agreed to, that the exhibition has agreed to, rather than you know, any that could be used for, you know, purposes other than what everybody has agreed to, given the sensitive, uh sensitive material.

Um, yeah. I guess this is my Jack White reference coming in again. Okay, I care. He doesn't allow people to. We went to a concert, a Jack White concert together, and um, we were very surprised to see that they took our phones. And he for him, it's all about the performance, isn't it? About being present. Speaking of being present, and I think that's one of the lessons that Marina Obramovic teaches us, is the idea of being present. And it's true that when you have your phone, you always have a screen mediating your experience. I mean, they are doing a lot of work. And by the way, just you know, do you know that they they can't be like the performers can't do the same, they can't do the same endurance exercise that Ule and Abramovich did. Because of the unions. So they have to be replaced. They can't stay for the whole day, which changes the performance a little bit, you know, the the work laws. Because we were there at the time where there were, you know, the passage was empty. There was there was no one there. And we had to wait for the performers to arrive. So it was a whole thing. So we had to wait, people were queuing. It changed, I think, somewhat the experience of the performance. It was still interesting to see how they arrive, how you suddenly your body is prepared to perform. They stare at each other, which is something that I hadn't noticed and I didn't know from pictures of the performance. This was the first time I experienced it. And I hadn't realized that they actually stare at each other. And then the documentary, The Artist Is Present, they film the last day and the last minutes of the exhibition. And the performers who are performing in Ponderbilia start crying and hug each other. So it really is an intense performance for the performers as well. I think when it is performed by someone else, it becomes something. I don't know. What do you think?

I mean, so much of who, from what I understand, of who Marina Abramovich is, is, you know, is that goes back to that training of being a soldier, a warrior, I mean, of really working through, you know, being very exhaustive in what you can bring to a performance. I mean, that is that is if you were to crack open and find the DNA of her performances, I think that that's one of the things you would find. So it's inevitably gonna change it if people are doing two-hour shifts or I don't know, four-hour whatever the shifts are for the performance artists.

But but do you think that in some ways that affects the performance and the experience of the performance, or do you think that it's part of it? Because as soon as you accept reenactments, then how does it affect the performance? Do you think that it's still because Olay, we didn't talk about it a lot yet, but Ule and Marina Bramovich definitely were working about their own dynamic as a couple and a couple's dynamic, a straight couple's dynamic. And when you're not a couple performing, then it is something something completely different. We don't even know the sexual orientations of these performers, so it becomes about something else, but it's still male and female all the time. Um, I wonder it, for example, wouldn't she want to explore um you know this performance with a same-sex couple, but then maybe she wants to make it something beyond the couple because she's no longer with Ole.

Yeah. I mean, uh, yeah, it's inevitably a different work of art. I mean, you're not, you're not, as for all the reasons you've described, you're not necessarily feeling that that connection between the performers that Ule and Marina will have had. Your, you know, you don't know I mean, the the level of exhaustion and concentration it takes to stand there for hours and hours is wildly different than what it takes to stand there for two hours or four hours, not to diminish that you know achievement in and of itself. But yeah, but yeah, it's totally a different thing. I mean, it's I mean, I I didn't feel like I thought I was experiencing an idea of Abramovich's. I didn't feel like I was experiencing an Abramovich piece, maybe is the difference.

Oh, okay, interesting. She does talk about the fact that it's a little bit like um interpreting Abraham's piece or Mozart piece. It was is going to be different. We will not be, we are not playing Mozart the way it was played when he was alive, for sure.

Of course.

So maybe that's you know, it's like a partition. She did establish the Marina Abramovich Institute, where she now wants to uh promote performance, but also define the rules of performance, making sure that performers, I mean, performance artists are paid, they get their fees uh whenever performances are reenacted. Um, but maybe Emily, I'm sorry, I cut you off because we do speak a lot when we're together. Um, do you want to just say a few words about the rest of the exhibition? Because it it's not always as intense as the the Ulay Abramovich room.

Yeah, for sure. So the so there is the Ule and uh Abramovich uh rooms, and then they it culminates in the walk on the Great Wall of China where they formally separate. But after she and Ule separate, you know, so they separated on the Great Wall of China. She got a lot of inspiration from nature on this three-month walk to meet Ule in the middle of the Great Wall of China. And she started, you know, using energy from nature to create works of art using crystals and natural elements to create chairs and sort of things that you can lie down on and put your head on, you know, certain gemstones. And, you know, she she was she was very interested in the crotch and the heart and the head. So there's sort of various points at which those line up and and people can participate in these art in this art. And it was great, like at this point in the exhibition, you're totally exhausted.

I like the the the head crotch heart thing because I thought, like you said, after the whole very draining experience of watching people slapping each other, whipping themselves, you know, holding an arrow to the other person's heart, uh, like she did with Ule, you're so drained, but at the same time, you have such contained energy in your body that when you arrive at this room, I thought it was really interesting to. I mean, whether you believe it or not in the chakras or whatever, it was really interesting for for to know that an artist was thinking of my crutch. I thought it was really interesting.

Oh, thank you, Marina.

Thank you. Always so thoughtful.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's very rare. We do it doesn't often happen in an exhibition where the artist is like, by the way, be mindful of your your brain, your heart, and your crotch area.

Crotch, yeah. You gotta take care of the vitals, you know. And it is really remarkable how it goes from something very loud to something very, you know, these are objects she's creating. So, and the performance is the attendees in engaging with these objects. So it's very quiet, it's very subdued, and it's you know, very necessary, as we said, at that point in the exhibition where you're sort of distraught. Beyond that, it kind of goes into more, I would say, quiet rooms. I mean, really examining her relationship to the Catholicism, which was her grandmother's influence. She was partially raised by her grandmother.

And and it's really interesting because she says that her grandmother in some ways saved her life and made her at her childhood period and adolescent period a bit more bearable because um you couldn't be religious, obviously, in in communist Yugoslavia. And um, and and in some ways, her grandmother was a very spiritual person, and she does have a spiritual aspect to her work, and that comes straight from her grandmother, and that was really important to her. So it's not surprising to see the final work like a bathtub full of chamomile, and and the text in the exhibition does explain, I think, in a bit of an esoteric kind of generalist way that I find unsatisfying, where it is explained that she started um, you know, traveling, going to Dramsala, being with the Tibetan uh monks and other kinds of spiritual people, and that she understood that spiritualism, which I think, you know, is a bit unsatisfying and imprecise and sometimes a bit globalist a relationship with very serious contextual practices. Um, but that was the text. I guess the exhibition and the and the experience of the artworks is different.

Yeah. And I mean, you know, I I do sort of feel for the people who need to write those texts, right? It's like you're trying to condense some very big ideas into something that is palatable for people like me, you know, who are pretty novice, I would say, to art generally.

You're touching upon a very, very big question in curating nowadays. Because um, yeah, the Anglo-Saxon world is very much about explaining, contextualizing, having, you know, a very, very actually when I always look at jobs, you know, although I'm an independent writer and curator, uh, I always look at jobs, you know, and it very often the Tate is looking for people who are curating those texts and who are writing them and who are mediating for the public, you know, the exhibitions, because it is a hard, it is a tough job. It is a lot of work. You have to know a lot about the artist or the exhibition to be able to condense information. I am very critical of some of the texts. I find them sometimes very unhelpful. And I think that we've overdone it here on this side of the channel, uh, as opposed to other countries like France or, you know, in other countries in Europe, where I think you are more left to your own devices and there's more trust in the visitor. And sometimes where I'm, you know, in Germany or when I'm in France or Spain, I feel the need for those texts as well. You know, it's it's a very complex, it's very complicated. And I think the the key here is to find a tone and a perspective that allows for the viewer to have their own experience. But I think here I would be a bit critical of Marina Rabramovich herself. I don't know if you watch her documentary, I think it's a 2016 documentary called The Space in Between, where she goes to Brazil. Okay. And she, because Brazil is a spiritual country, um, quote, you know, inverted commerce. And I I I had to stop. I I thought, you know, I love Marina Rabramovich's work. I'm not gonna continue watching this. She starts with a person called John of Gods, who has been debunked as a big charlatan. He's been accused of sexual assaults, and she's looking at him with like watery eyes, and I just, you know, I can bear it. So I think maybe there's something a bit of her generation as well, of just like taking, I'm gonna use that word appropriating, you know, sometimes some cultures, which has become a bit problematic. But her the work she does and the pieces she produces at the end of the exhibition, some of them are very strong and very Abramovich. I mean, they are not referencing any culture whatsoever. Um, she's very much into crystals, she could teach a whole lesson, I think, about crystals. So, yeah, that's another aspect of the work.

Yeah, it's uh you know, there's definitely you see a gear change in the kinds of work that she is is doing, which makes sense. I mean, she sees herself as the instrument of her art. And I mean, the kinds of stuff any of us what we were doing at 20 is very different than what we're doing at 40 and 60 and so on. So it I really admire the fact that she that she moved with it rather than against it and thought, you know, didn't she she could have there's you know, she could have thought to herself, I am someone who's pushing the boat out always in this very extreme way. And, you know, she didn't she didn't always need to rely on that to have, you know, to have really impactful work.

But speaking of that, um, I think we can focus on the beginning of the exhibition, one of our favorite two works and the relation that they both have. You're very right, Emily, when you say that she does. I mean, that's one of the things that we really like about her, isn't it? When we can follow the life of a woman, and I say woman because I think, you know, she's a very feminine person and she and and she is a female artist who's now recognized and has a place of her own in the art world, which is not easy, especially for someone who's now 77 years old. Um, and she has conquered that position and she's now opening the door to other performers as well that she talks about because she's now um leading her institute and teaching other performers or at least preparing them or sharing the Abramovich method, as she says so herself. And the in The Artist Is Present, which is the first work of the exhibition, is the work that she performed at the Museum of Modern Art in 2010. So in 2010 there were reenactments of her performances, it was a retrospective exhibition, but at the same time she did a new work, which was called The Artist Is Present, where she would sit in a chair the whole day for three months and would face someone and look at someone, so be completely present for a person, for each member of the audience that would sit across the table on the other side. And that was an incredible physical endurance and you know mindful exercise. And what's really incredible is that she says that she could never have done that piece in her 20s and in her 30s. In fact, the piece itself is related to Rhythm Zero that you referenced in the beginning of the podcast, which was a completely for her, it's the opposite work. And the artist is present, and I don't know that many people know this, is in fact a sort of a reaction to rhythm zero. So rhythm zero was performed in 1974, I think, in in Italy, in Milan, and it was six hours straight in the an exhibition space where uh was there as an object. So there was a piece of paper stating that she had full responsibility for whatever would be done to her during six hours. She was an object, um, with props that she had laid out on a table, 72 props of pleasure and pain. So there was honey, there was paper, there was a uh there were roses, and then there was a loaded gun, there were knives, you know, lots of different tools that you could use on her.

Um and so at the exhibition itself, they had an actual table filled with those same, those same objects, and then had images of the exhibition when she did it. And as you say, it was in Italy in the 70s, so it's filled with like a lot of beardy men. Um, and she is standing there completely vulnerable, saying for six hours, standing there as an object, saying, Do what you would like to do to me. Really?

And so they did, yeah. And so so they did. I mean, they cut her neck, drew, drank her blood from her neck. She she still has a scarf from that. They laid her on the table, opened her legs, put a knife between her legs, um, took the gun at the end. Someone took the gun and pointed it at her head, and someone else yanked the gun away, so saved her. Um, she does say that she wasn't raped because there were couples there, um, who in some ways kind of maintained a sort of boundary, I guess. I don't know why you draw the boundary there where you're actually cutting someone. Um, they took the thorns out of the roses and put them in her flesh. Um it was just awful. And she describes Rhythm Zero, and it's interesting the name when you think of Ground Zero as well. Maybe in New York she was kind of inspired by this idea of like going back to basics or you know, a uh an empty template. I don't know. Anyway, rhythm zero um was the worst in humanity, and she and that and that experience remained with her. She says that when she went back home, she looked at herself in the mirror and she had a streak of white hair. So her her hair turned white during those six hours, a bit of her hair, strand of her hair. And so she said that in so in in 2010, finally, 42 years later, she reacted to that experience with the artist's presence, which is a high consciousness experience. So she describes this as being fully present for the person in front of her. People cried, there were performance artists who wanted to be in front of her, just to stare at her, gaze at her, be in her presence. And she was there the whole day, and it was an incredibly powerful, it was so powerful that people gathered around the space. If you know the Museum of Modern Art, it is a space that is very difficult for you to concentrate because you can see it from different levels, and you go up from stairs to a sort of a platform, and it's it's so difficult. I mean, it was this was such a work of powerful concentration, and because of that, she says that she would never have been able to do this in her 20s and 30s because at 62, I hope I'm I'm getting this right, your mind, your wisdom is there to support you in this experience, and this is a work of maturity, and that I just love to see a woman in her 60s saying, Okay, in your 20s and 30s, my boobs may have been, you know, perkier, and you know, my my body may have been more energetic, but now my mind is stronger, and that's where you gain instead of describing herself as someone who's wrinkled, who's getting older, she does go there and say, you know, this is what you have at my age, this is what I have, and this was a powerful experience. And in your 60s, you can bring people up to a form of high consciousness instead of bringing them then down to bestiality almost, you know, it was just a feral aspect of humankind. So that was really I don't I don't know if you watched the film Nyad. I haven't now. Yeah, so Nyad is uh a Netflix film that came out recently about a swimmer who swam from um Florida to Cuba in her 60s. So she had attempted that when she was 28 and she failed. And she says in the film, uh, because she's it's Annette Benning and Jodie Foster, who are just the most amazing pairing.

Yeah, go wrong.

Jodie Foster's character, yeah, you can't go wrong. Jodie Foster's character, he's a her lifelong friend, and she is trying to convince uh to be her coach, and Jodie Foster's character says, I think Bobby is her name, she says, Wait, you're crazy, you're 60 years old. And um Nayad replies, Well, yes, and that's what I have now, my mind, and my mind's gonna make me do this, and she did it. So I for me was there was a direct relationship of like in the same month, two women saying, Yeah, 60s, that your 60s are amazing, you know. Look forward to that.

Getting better, yeah, exactly. I know that that is an incredible arc, though, from the artist is present to rhythm zero, and I guess in reverse, really, how she did it in her life. I mean, and you think of you know, the the wherewithal that she talks about it took in the artist is present to sit across from people for hours and hours. And when you see those images of her face in that first room, she looks tired. She looks like, you know, like there's just so much concentration kind of being spent to just be present with these people, as you say, in what is probably a really distracting environment with all these onlookers, you know, on multiple levels in this museum. But but I also think just, you know, the what she had to overcome to do rhythm zero. I mean, someone has someone is drinking your blood, and and you just override your instincts for self-preservation, which are massive, right? I mean, that's not even in the thinking mind. That's such a good point. Yeah. In the binary mind, to be like, you know what, stop doing that. I have to survive and and save myself, to to override fight or flight, you know, to just hang with it, even when it's that, you know, that dangerous and and potentially lethal, is like that just says so much about her fortitude. And and also like why? Like, why I I mean that that that rhythm zero. I I mean, so if we're talking about movies, so there's the movie that was out a few years ago, Free Solo, with Alex Honnold. He's a guy who climbs El Capitan without any rope. Super extreme. This is extr one false move, and your hand gets a bit sweaty and you lose your grip, you fall You're gonna, you know, end your life. That's it. There's no other way. And um, and you're watching, you know, as a viewer, you're watching this documentary, and you know, obviously he lives, you know that he makes it through, but but there's also like I'm giving attention to someone who's doing something extraordinarily extreme, and for what? You know, do you want would I want my kid my my kids to to do that? Yeah. You know, so so what is the complicity of the viewers in that? I mean, do we want other people do we want other artists? Would you would you want your kids like doing that? To do this? Is that is that something we celebrate? And I, you know, I have you know conflicted feelings about it.

Those are two different things. Okay. This is very different. That's why if Marina Rabramovich is militant about performance art, I'm militant about art. And I think those are two very different things because Free Solo, I can't remember his name, is um doing it for for the the sake of doing it faster, better, you know, to a more extreme level. You know, there's there's another one, um, there's another documentary about someone who's who's going to climb Free Solo the quickest. You know, the quickest, maybe I don't it it it was El Capitan, but it was other, he started in Switzerland, he was a Swiss um uh alpinist, yeah, climber, and um and with Marina Rabronovich, um with the she endured something with the audience. So the audience is there because as when you're watching Free Solo, you're absolutely powerless. Whereas there the power was given to the audience to do something. So I think in in contemporary art, that's what's fascinating, is that you know people have this, um people have this at contemplative attitude towards art, which I it's is wrong. You know, this idea of being entertained, I want to go to a museum. And and I think if there's anything to criticize, and I know where you're going as well, about Marina Ramovich's work, is that sometimes it bec can become a bit sensationalist. You know, it can become all about talking about the two naked performers, which actually was the least interesting experience, in my opinion, of the show. Because as we talked about, not in this podcast, but before, I was very mindful of not stepping on their toes and then as soon as I realized I had gone through the portal and that was it. So I think that that's definitely dangerous, the idea of even an experience like Abramovich's as a female artist, for people who are making decisions at the Royal Academy, of saying, well, we did Abramovich who's a female artist, because she can, you know, she can bring lots of people in, because it's a sensation, because it's, you know, people are curious, there's a word-to-mouth kind of thing going on. Whereas if we invite a painter, it's not going to be the same. And that's, I think, a problem. Because when you're watching a painting, and we will be talking about painters in this podcast, you're not, you know, it's not going to unl unless it's supposed to be contemplative, and that's what the artist wants you to do, which is also important in what is contemplating and what is your body doing when you're looking at something. That's also really interesting. Um you're always participating.

Yeah.

You're always there doing something, and you will not leave the same. Whereas if I'm watching free solo, I will never think about it again. To be honest, is the kind of thing that I'm very, very, very weary of in terms of humanity. And even competition, even the Olympics. Oh, that person won for you know uh uh uh a tenth of second or a millisecond. I well, is that supposed to move me?

Well, I don't know. See, I that makes me cry. The Olympics always make me cry. I'm like, wow, they work so hard and this is their moment, you know. Uh uh.

But it's the work so hard that makes you cry. It's not the millisecond, the the the tenth of millisecond that makes you cry. It's the preparation, it's all the work of the journalists beforehand where you know the who they are, you know the favorites, it's the the the underdog country that never won anything that we're gonna that that will make you cry. It's not Michael Phelps. Michael Phelps will not make you cry.

Yeah, yeah. It's the narrative that's built up around him and the moment and all of that. But I think your point about power is the crucial one, is that you know, that the experience isn't, you know, the experience in free solo is him and the rock and his mental state. And I mean, maybe it's a bit like Nyad, you know. I mean, it it's about her and her mental state and kind of how she is approaching the water, etc., the elements. But yeah, the power for Rhythm Zero is really absolutely with the audience and to see what the audience did, which is nearly kill her and maim her.

Yeah, to your point, it there is a technicality. There is a because I think the the film Nayad is amazing because it doesn't have that music when the you the the performer is achieving something, it's just so technical a film. It's actually the the people who filmed Free Solo, they were documented. Yeah. Abramovich, Nyad, Free Solo, they both have in common a highly trained body and an endurance and a discipline that you know that we commoners do not have. That's for sure.

Well, she yeah, I mean she developed it, I guess, through Vipassana meditation. She she'd mentioned that in there, which certainly is, you know. I mean, that that's apparent certainly in the the artist is present of just sitting with whatever is.

I was just thinking of like going back to um what what would you like to talk about? Um, Balkan Baroque, Ule, the Great Wall of China. What were the three works? I think those are the three works that are the most significant, I think, in politically, personally, um, in terms also of the the limits of performance in terms of your personal life. Um, because both Balkan Baroque and uh the Great Wall of China, they are both moments in her life where she becomes autobiographical.

So, I mean, so say say a bit about Balkan Baroque and what that is.

So Balkan Baroque is um uh an installation that she did for the Venice Biennial in um response to the war uh in the Balkans at the time. She wasn't living in her country of birth or of region of birth um because was her country is being torn apart at that time, and she was very worried and very obviously very touched by the situation there. And so she filmed herself, and on so there's a main screen which is bigger at the center, and then two screens where her mum and her dad um or figures that you know suggest to you, the viewer doesn't know, but suggested the viewer that it's a mother and the father, and then there's a pile of bones, um of I think cow's bones, um, that when this work was installed in the biennial, she was cleaning, so she spent her days there cleaning the bones of the blood and the the remains of flesh. And you know, mind you, the biennial is during the summer, it's in June, it opened in June, and so she says that after three days there were worms on the pile of but on the bones, it was the the smell was horrific. So this is really a reaction to the war, but also to the local history and her own history. Her dad's holding a gun, um, and she is talking about she interviewed someone who worked uh with rats, killing rats for 35 years, and so she starts by saying, you know, uh, to kill a rat, um, and you should you have to do this, and she talks about the behavior of rats, which obviously a rat is a traitor, and her parents were national heroes. Um, you know, it it's it's a very complex layered text, and then she dances um a typical dance of of the of the of that area. I I'm not sure it's Serbian, but you know, something like that, and a very sexy dance where you know her body exudes confidence and and sensuality, but is also a bit menacing in some in this idea of taking the power. Um, and also for a female artist, I think it's interesting that she chose that uh idea of taking power, of of you know, of having it and it takes also takes us also to a whole other thing that we don't have time for. But a friend of mine, and I want to quote her on this, uh, another American friend of mine said, you know, more American friends, what? Emily, I betrayed you. They better not be just kidding. And she uh we're talking about performance, I don't recall why, and she said, Well, it's very interesting because all the female performers who and even male who were getting naked in the 70s, 80s, even you know, late 60s, they are all have gorgeous bodies. And I think you know, if we want to be very cynical, um, she she did have a point. So, I mean, just put it out there in terms of performers, you know. I think the you know, can contemporary artists now for for other generations uh have a much more diverse array of bodies, so I think that's also something to be mindful of, I think. And she does work on that power, and that's why I made a point in saying that she did at Woodulay was about you know heterosexual relationships and the female body as well, it's gendered. I think we always relate to art in a very neutral way, which is something that we may talk about one day. I have an issue with the idea of universal and neutral, I think they're very patriarchal notions. We also need to come in to these um experiments with a critical eye and think in terms of feminism, in terms of gendered bodies, what it means as well to have explored those relationships, heterosexual relationships. Um, you know, would be interested in knowing how, you know, uh a gay woman would look at this exhibition. We're, you know, both in heterosexual relationships, you and I. So, you know, what what would be the take on on this on this exhibition? Uh so yeah, so that was Balkan Baruch, and I went on a tangent.

No, good though. I mean, you know, it's it is such an intimate work. You know, I you know, she is in the midst of a really bloody war in her, you know, in her home city. I mean, Belgrade was not a pretty place during this, during this time. You know, I mean, especially now with all that's happening in the world. I found it a useful reminder of, you know, just having this expression from someone who is in the midst of that, who is dealing with the death. I mean, I know that her brother and her brother's daughter, you know, escaped and stayed with her in Amsterdam during that period. And just the heartache of of seeing, you know, your home be destroyed. And this is something that obviously people in Ukraine, people in Gaza and Israel and the West Bank, I mean, you know, people in Sudan, I mean, you know, it's like the list goes on.

Yemen, it's you know, it's Syria, Aleppo, you know, so many places at the moment that are completely destroyed, you know, it's it's so heartbreaking. Um, but what did you think of the I mean, Olay doesn't consider the Great Wall of China, which has a title that I can't remember, um, was a performance. What's what did you think of it and what what was your take on it?

I mean, I just thought it was so emblematic of their relationship, you know. I mean, so in the in the booklet, it talks about how initially they talked about they they might get married when they meet in the middle, but it had taken a long time for the permissions to come about, and it was 1988 by the time they could actually perform the work. So, but so she starts at one end, he starts at the other, and they meet in the middle, and takes them three months to actually get to the center point where they meet, and you know, this is the point at which they uh sort of dissolve their romantic and professional relationship. And I mean, I thought it was look, I mean, they started their relationship with her, you know, seeking his first aid after cutting a star into her stomach. Yeah, it's like that is that is a very kind of auspicious in its own way beginning. And this felt like a natural bookend for a couple that could not separate their personal and performative lives. I mean, that was antithetical to who they were as artists. So I mean, it felt, I think it actually would have been weird if it was like, oh, and they met in a cafe and they had a discussion about where their lives were going and decided to amicably split, you know, a conscious uncoupling would not have been something this couple would have done. So it felt uh Marina's walk to the center. She had a bunch of rubbings that she had done from the wall itself. Which I I mean, that was actually one of my favorite things. And you know, that was just very much who they were and was very fitting of who they were.

So it would have been possible, but I think to my point, I think it really, their work was really about themselves. There was it's inseparable. And um Marina Ramovich continued her work unseparated from her life. There's there's really something to say about that kind of commitment. Yeah, you you're she's almost like a priestess, she has that form of commitment, which is, I think, over time.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I mean, I just, you know, she did separate herself a bit. I mean, when she moved into a bit more of the objects, and even her performative art later on wasn't necessarily putting her body on the line as it had in previous works of performance. But I mean, you just wonder like, what does it look like for Marina Abramovich to like chill? You know, I mean, I was telling you that, you know, the other day I just basically spent the day on the sofa in my robe watching napping, really, to Agatha Christie on the BBC. She does.

She does. I think she does. Because after, for example, the artist is present, she said that she went into a Netflix, or you know, almost Hallmark film kind of moment period of her life. And she said that, can you imagine? So she chills, and she said, you know, before I would be so ashamed of that, so ashamed. Right. And now I embrace the three marinas. They live happily together. And again, this is the teaching of someone who's reached a certain point in her life, 77 years old, still performing, and saying, Do you know what? Just be nice to yourself. You know, life is made of rhythms. And it's interesting that her first words were called rhythm zero, one, two, three, four, five. Life's made of rhythms. When you go on a high, you need to be on a low. And that's what she so cleverly said about the exhibition. The crystal part was so needed. So there's definitely there in no vanity, ego is there, and I think that's why she's so interesting in the artist is present. What's so moving about that piece is that she gets something back from people as well. It's not just her bestowing her power and her magnificence concentration, it's she's also crying.

When so Peter and I, when we left the exhibition, we kind of couldn't really speak for a little while. We we walked up Piccadilly and went to Missalda Zone as you do and got a nice curry. And it wasn't until we sort of sat down with some comfort food that we could sort of talk about it. But on the way there, you know, you walk through Piccadilly Circus and there's these, you know, enormous images. And there was one of yes, I think it was a Kardashian or somebody I don't know, who looked a bit like a Kardashian in any case. And the the context obviously is trying to sell me perfume or a handbag or what whatever it was. And you know, thinking back to when I was walking into the exhibition, uh thinking, am I gonna feel this because she's not here and I'm not actually seeing, you know, performance from her. I'm seeing images and video. But um, and it's just like the power of the images from her just sitting there in the artist as present or during any of her performances, so incredibly powerful with her presence. And then just looking, you know, as we went to Masala's own through Piccadilly Circus, this other type of image that is like so lightweight in comparison.

So, shall we wrap this up? And um, at the end of each episode, we will choose an artwork that we would like to have at home. If, you know, if that could be the case, what would you like to re-experience or to have a first-hand experience of?

I mean, for it has to be the artist is present, you know. I mean, if that it's it's one of those things where if I had known about it at the time and if I were in New York in 2010, I would have been in line, or I hope I would have gotten myself off the sofa away from Magatha Christie to get in line and experience that. I mean, yeah, definitely. How about you?

I think I have a sort of a um completely unjustifiable FOMO of the Iule Abramovich performances because one thing that when you when it when it comes to historical pieces um of that time, when you look at the archival um images, you forget the moment when they happened, which when Marina Abramovich was not Marina, the Marina Abramovich that Jay-Z admires uh now. You know, she was a young artist and that he was a young artist. And I think I would have loved to be present for one of their performances and see the tension and feel the tension and feel, you know, the befuddlement, the discombobulation of the audience, the rage, because performance, you know, instills a sort of rage in certain people, you know, and and just watching uh Marina Abramovich and Ule slap each other. And I think I would have liked to feel not only the performance itself, but also the audience that went with it. And I think what was so interesting with Ulé, and we didn't talk much about him, but he's such an interesting person, is that he went there. He went there at a time where you know you would say things like, you have to open the door for ladies. Um, and it's it's so interesting to see that he respected her so much that he hit her, that he was not condescending and he went there. And I think that's so impressive, and I would have loved to be present in one of the first iterations of any of their performances. I would have loved that. See, now I want to change my answer.