Marina and Ulay

    I've seen Marina Abramovic's work before (and it's truly lovely and absolutely fascinating).  I'm not a fan of performance art, usually.  I just never thought a lot of what is labeled "performance art" is actually art, just someone trying to be all "deep" and "meaningful".  But Abramovic's art was different; it's emotional, raw, exposing.  It's art in the sense of humans and our actions.  Her piece 72 Objects was what first caught my eye. In 1974,  Marina Abramovic stood in a room for 6 hours passively with a table that had 72 items on it.  Some of the items could cause pain, others pleasure.  Abramovic would allow people to use the objects in any way they please, without her having any repercussion.  After the six hours, Abramovic said this: "What I learned was that if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you. I felt really violated – they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation.:" 

72 Objects on the table

Abramovic in 1974

This is so fascinating, this ART is like a PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. Without punishment, people will do things that are hurtful but when we see confrontation we instinctively run. I mean that's so interesting.  I also ENVY the courage it takes to stand in a room and allow people to just do anything to you for 6 hours, as well as the complete and total exposure it causes.  It's art, it tells us more about human nature.  It truly reflects our instincts, our tendency towards violence. 
  I could go on and on about this, but I also wanted to talk about Marina Abramovic's partner, Ulay.  Ulay was also a well known performance artist in the 60's and 70's and focused on the body and space.  He began to work with Marina Abramovic in 1976.  They loved each other, and worked together until 1989.  They felt that their relationship had come to an end and decided to walk the Great Wall of China, meeting in the middle for a final hug and then to leave each other, never to see one another again. 
  Now, that in itself is a beautiful story.  Mutually leaving someone you love in the most beautiful, most sweet way.  But it gets even better.  
  Abramovic continued her career as a performance artist and in 2010 did a show called "The Artist is Present" at MoMa.  She sat at a table and would stare at the person who sat down across from her in complete silence for one minute.  Think about that, think about how much you can take in by staring at someone for one whole minute. Think of how unnatural that is, people never look at each other that long, it's personal, revealing.  You can tell a lot from a person's face.  During one of the shows, Ulay sat down at the table.  Abramovic had not known he was coming, they had not seen each other in years.  And for one minute, one minute, they sat and looked at one another. 

 Watch it, watch it ALL. Because it's beautiful.  The amount of memories stored in each other, the love, the craving, the acceptance, it's all beautiful and visible in their eyes.  The fact that they did not speak, that they just saw each other and just understood.  The few seconds after he's gone and new person sits down, she has to find herself again. It's so beautiful to see so much love, so much complete and total unplanned raw emotions, it's so complicated and so pure and amazing.  It's truly incredible. 

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