ART CITIES:Sao Paolo-Marina Abramović

“TERRA COMUNAL–MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ + MAI”, is the title of the artist’s biggest retrospective in South America and the most ambitious public program coordinated by her Institute (MAI) to date. The event runs from March 10th to May 10th (2015) at Sesc Pompeia, a historical building that combines the revitalization of an old factory with the modernist architecture of Lina Bo Bardi.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: MAI Archive

Marina Abramović’s retrospective assembles immersive installations, historic videos and interactive objects representing the artist’s recent groundbreaking solo performances. Together, these works illuminate the sources of Abramović’s creativity, which have driven her career for over 40 years. The retrospective includes three large-scale, immersive installations representing Abramović’s seminal performance works from the last twelve years. An entirely new presentation of “The House with the Ocean View”, presented at the Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, in 2002, has been designed by the artist for Terra Comunal at SESC. “The Artist Is Present”, performed for the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) as part of the artist’s retrospective in 2010, will be shown on a massive scale as a multi-channel video installation. The third installation in “Terra Comunal – Marina Abramović” is composed of the never before seen video documentation of “512 Hours”. This piece is based on the unique performance which took place at The Serpentine Galleries in London, in the summer of 2014. The show will also include a careful selection of videos from all points in her career. Jochen Volz has selected 10 videos which trace the history and trajectory of Abramović’s art practice. The videos highlight her ability to commit to a single action over an extended period of time, which open the potential of personal transformation for both the artist and the spectator. A collection of Transitory Objects for Human and Non-Human. Use are also included in the exhibition. Beginning in 1989, after her separation from Ulay, Abramović began making a body of sculptural works that were designed to be interacted with by the public. These objects also reveal the roots of an ongoing relationship that Abramović has cultivated with Brazil. The artist has been visiting the country since 1989 (she’s traveled to Pará, Minas Gerais, Santa Catarina, Amazonas, and other locations), in order to investigate crystals and other minerals and their influence on the human body and mind, something that proposes to us in artworks, such as the sculpture with the huge Lapis Lazuli, where we have to place the region of the 3rd eye (located between the eyebrows) into a special nook that she has created in the stone, to eavesdrop for a little the vibration of the crystal.

Info:’’Terra Comunal’’, Curating: Jochen Volz – Head of Programmes at London’s Serpentine Galleries – with the assistance of Catarina Duncan and Sidney Russell, SESC Pompeia, Rua Clélia, 93 – Vila Pompeia, São Paulo, Duration: 10/3-10/5/15, www.mai-hudson.org