First published June 10, 2015.
Artist Marina Abramovic was doing a live art performance that consisted of sitting silently opposite members of the public who took turns participating. Among the participants was Ulay, whose arrival introduced a relationship extending beyond the setting of the performance.
At the 1:30 mark, Ulay, her former lover for many years sits down across from her. Marina and Ulay had a long personal and artistic history. The claim that this was their first meeting after more than thirty years was not substantiated in the 2015 report.
The visible response gives the encounter emotional force, while its private meaning remains partly beyond what a short recording can establish.
(The video originally embedded here is no longer available on YouTube.)
Update: Ulay died in 2020
Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen) died on 2 March 2020 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, aged 76, of complications from cancer treatment. The 2010 meeting shown here did not end all differences between the former partners: in 2015 he sued Abramović in a Dutch court over their 1999 contract for jointly created works, and the court ordered her to pay back-dated royalties of more than €250,000.
Sources: The Art Newspaper, 2 March 2020: Pioneering performance artist Ulay has died aged 76
Shared history enters the silent encounter
MoMA presented The Artist Is Present in 2010, with members of the public taking turns sitting opposite Marina Abramović. Ulay's participation brought their shared personal and artistic history into the encounter. Its significance does not depend on the unsubstantiated claim that they had not met for thirty years.
Give the silence time to work
Stillness gives a small change of expression unusual weight. The performance's simple arrangement leaves attention with two people facing one another, while the viewer knows that more history exists than the camera can explain. The clip can therefore be moving without providing access to everything either person remembers. Seen within the wider work, the famous encounter becomes one particular instance of its sustained attention to presence, duration and the experience of being met by another person.
An audience watches a performance based on watching, adding another layer to the scene. The camera selects from that encounter again, so the familiar recording is both a document of the work and a particular view of one moment within it.
Sources and context: MoMA: Marina Abramović — The Artist Is Present
Normally, I would have been quite moved by this display of emotions, but I am horrified instead. This woman is the personification of evil. She is the :
ReplyDelete"artist" responsible for Spirit Cooking. Look it up on YouTube. Then, see how you feel about her.