Internationally acclaimed performance artist Marina Abramović is celebrated for her daring, high-stakes art that often leaves audiences reflecting deeply on the human experience.
A prime example of her audacious work is Rhythm 0, which was carried out in 1974. In this performance, Abramović presented 72 items for the audience to use on her as they desired, over a span of six hours, without any resistance from her.
This performance was an exploration of the dynamic between the artist and the onlookers. Initially, the attendees were hesitant in their interactions. However, as they realized Abramović wouldn’t react, the situation intensified, with objects like a whip and rose thorns being applied to her, and a gun and bullet ominously present.
The now 79-year-old artist, discussing her work with Louis Theroux on his podcast, recounted being ‘ready to die’ for her art and how the experience led her to establish a crucial boundary in her future work.
“You never know if they’re going to kill you or not,” Abramović remarked, reflecting on the unpredictable nature of involving the public in her performances. She expressed frustration with how performance art was perceived at the time, saying, “I was so angry [about] how they treat performance art.”
At just 23 years old, she stood motionless in the gallery, enduring the escalating actions of the audience. “The public went crazy, but this was not me, I did not do anything. This was them to me, and I knew the public can kill you,” she explained.
By the conclusion of the performance in an Italian gallery, Abramović had been stripped and assaulted, reaching a climax when someone picked up the gun, loaded it, and aimed it at her head.
Reflecting on this intense experience, Abramović once said, “It was six hours of real horror. They would cut my clothes. They will cut me with a knife, close to my neck, and drink my blood, and then put the plaster over the wound.”
“They will carry me around, half-naked, put me on the table, and stuck the knife between my legs into the wood,” she recounted.
With Louis Theroux, she reiterated her intent: “I wanted to show that the public can f***ing kill you,” noting that she was indifferent to other interpretations of her work, which often explores themes that ‘disturb’ or shame people.
This encounter with the potential violence from the audience, without her intervention or movement, imparted a lasting lesson on audience engagement that informed her subsequent works.
Three decades later, this experience influenced another globally recognized performance, this time devoid of any physical contact or weapons.
In The Artist is Present, Abramović again invited public participation, sitting motionless for eight hours daily at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, without interruption.
Reflecting on lessons from Rhythm 0, she imposed a critical restriction: “I restricted the public to nothing, public can’t touch me, can’t talk to me, they can’t move, they can sit at the table and the chair and are involved in the gaze, I give them the gaze, and that changed everything.”
Participants could sit across from her, but any form of contact or conversation was prohibited. Far from mundane, this silent exchange moved many to tears, including Abramović herself.
The project attracted both celebrities and everyday New Yorkers, with lines stretching around the block for three months as people queued to engage in this profound experience with Abramović.