ART-PRESENTATION: Marina Abramović
Marina Abramović the world’s most recognized performance artist returns to Australia after a 17-year absence to participate in two projects that continue her extraordinary evolving creative life. The two projects offer the public a multi-faceted encounter with Abramović and her work that begins at MONA with Private Archaeology, a solo exhibition, followed by Marina Abramović: In Residence, in Kaldor Public Art Projects with a series of exercises from the Abramović Method.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: MONA & is Kaldor Public Art Projects Archive
Marina Abramović has stated that her time in the Australian Outback from October 1980 to March 1981 with the Pitjantjatjara and Pintupi people of the Western Desert was a seminal point in her life that changed how she presented herself in future performance works. As she said: “The desert is where you will find yourself… I’ve visited Australia many times since 1979 to study Aboriginal culture. I participated in artist residencies and the Sydney Biennale. I had a profound experience in the country. I then left for a long time in order to create works of art that could communicate my experience there. Now, after many years I will have a solo exhibition, at MONA, with a variety of works from different periods in my life. There will be photographs, video, objects, a sound installation and an exercise from the Abramović Method”. At MONA, Private Archaeology is a major exhibition showing her early foundational work with Ulay (Her lover and collaborative partner from 1976 to 1988), along with solo works that demonstrate her relentless commitment to exploring the physical and mental limits to her being. In more recent works to be displayed, the public is no longer merely a voyeur but part of the artwork. For the 30th For the 30th Kaldor Public Art Project, Marina Abramović and her team will be onsite at Pier 2/3 for 12 days, to lead the audience through a series of transformative experiences that will shift their focus, challenge their perceptions and change the way they look at art. Commenting on the project, Abramovic said: “I have made a career as a performance artist for 40 years and now my relationship to the public is changing. It used to be very simple: the public was sitting in the audience and I was performing in front of them. Then, with my performance ‘The Artist is Present,’ I created a one-to-one experience where the public was watching and only one person was actually experiencing. In ‘512 hours’, which I did at the Serpentine Galleries in London, the public were actually the ones performing and I just blended in. For ‘Marina Abramović: In Residence’, I will be like a conductor in the exhibition space, but it will be the public who will take the physical and emotional journey”.
Info: Private Archaeology, Curating: Nicole Durling and Olivier Varenne, Mona (Museum of Old and New Art), 655 Main Road, Berriedale, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, Duration: 13/6-5/10/15, Days & Hours: Daily: 10:00-17:00, www.mona.net.au & Marina Abramović: In Residence, Kaldor Public Art Projects, Pier 2/3, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay, Sydney, Duration: 24/6-5/7/15, Days & Hours: Daily: 12:00-19:00, http://kaldorartprojects.org.au/
