Art

Today I stumbled upon a picture on Twitter, and it was of Marina Abramovic, a Serbian performance artist. The picture had her standing still, and in tears with the top half of her body naked. I read the small text, and learnt about her performance in Belgrade in 1974.

This performance was called Rhythm 0: 1974. Marina set out to explore the relationship between artist and audience, and boy, did she achieve some results. She had laid a table with 72 items, ranging from a feather boa, to a loaded pistol. And she placed a sign that told the audience that they could use any of the items on the table on her, in any way they saw fit. She promised that she would stay in the same position for 6 hours, and that she would not run away.

Marina said, “What I learned was that… if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you.” Which in more ways than one, is really true. If you gave someone a knife, and told them that they could do whatever they want with it to you, and that you would not run, resist or fight back, chances are, they’re going to want to see how far they can take it. How much before you say “Stop”.

I want to end this off with a takeaway or a lesson learnt, but all I can think of right now is “Wow.”