Abramovic, Marina. Rythm 10(1973). Performance 1 hour. Performed at the Edinburgh Festival. Image reproduced from blog, http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/assets/img/data/69/bild.jpg (accessed May 25, 2009).
Abramovic, Marina. Rhythm 0, 1974. Performance/mixed media, various dimensions. Performed
at Studio Morra, Naples. Reproduced from Art Art Art Gallery,
(accessed May 19, 2009).
Abramovic, Marina. Thomas lips, 1975. Performance/mixed media, various dimensions.
Performed at Krinzinger Gallery 1975 and again at the Guggenheim (New York) in 2005.
Reproduced from Seven Easy Pieces, http://www.seveneasypieces.com/images/545_MA-
Thomas_Lips.jpg (Accessed May 19, 2009).
There are many artworks and artists that could come under the topic “Art and Deformation”. Deformation could refer to deformation of culture, of the physical environment, of the body, of an artwork, deformation of an object and many more things.
I have chosen to focus on the artist Marina Abramovic for this topic. I immediately thought of her after I’d chosen the topic although I didn’t know much about her. It has been interesting reading about her.
Marina Abramovic is a performance artist. Her work is often very confronting and involves using her body as an art form. She attempts to unite the spirit with the body, testing herself mentally and physically. She often puts herself through immense pain in order to do this. Which is in a sense deformation of the body as well as of cultural and social norms.
Abramovic was born into the generation of artists which felt, after world war two, that art needed to be moved closer to life. After the immense struggle people had gone through it seemed wrong to flounder around with representation and simulation and artists wanted to put themselves on the line instead. This generation thought that somehow absorbing life into art, or merging the two, might "restore the sanity that modernism was seen a having lost"*.
Abramovic uses her own physical pain in her work as a metaphor for pain (emotional and physical) in society & the world. When viewing her work the audience is confronted by suffering which, if looked at in a broader sense, is similar to suffering which occurs in the world we live in on a daily basis. We are forced to question our core values and beliefs as well as issues such as politics, sexism, culture, religion, war and violence.
*Thomas McEvilley. The Triumph of Anti-Art: Conceptual and Performance Art in the Formation of Post Modernism. (New York: McPherson & Company Publishers), 313.
(Sorry about the text I couldn't get rid of the underlining etc it is very annoying!)
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