MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ
Metronome Rhythm 0Videos by VICE
Marina Abramović:
Body Art But didn’t you have to get permission to leave?
Richard: It seems to me that performance art gained momentum and recognition as a movement in the early 70s. That’s when it really started picking up. That’s when I was in school, when, you, Chris Burden, and Vito Acconci started doing more—
Yeah, more radical things. In Yugoslavia, were you aware of those other people? Did the art scene in Yugoslavia at that time have international connections?
Richard: I noticed in the show at MoMA that in the knife piece—it’s Rhythm 10, I think—the documentation is just a scratched-out print. Did you realize the importance of documentation from the beginning?
Jesse: I’ve read about how your mother, when you were growing up, had a regimented, disciplinarian way with lists of words you had to learn and lists of things you had to eat. Did you carry that through into your adult life?
laughs
People end up becoming a lot like their parents even if they felt rebellious when they were kids.
gesturing to the monk in the other room
Richard: With body art, the original idea is that it exists only in the moment in which it happens. You cannot buy it. But then, over the years, everyone has had to make a living, so they’ve sold their artifacts.
Not artifacts, but photographs.
Seven Easy Pieces
Richard: Right.
Jesse: But when it’s done for that purpose alone, you’re still kind of accessing the headspace and really doing the performance for them?
Richard: But much attention is given to lighting, and it’s more theatrical. I’m just curious, because this was always the dilemma for performance art. Is it only pure art when there’s no finance attached to it?
Regarding your collaborations with Ulay, how long did it take for your two artistic egos to clash?
OK. [laughs] Oh, wait, I don’t mean how long did it take for you guys to hook up, but how long did it take before there was a clash?
Jesse: Not until the sex got bad.
laughs
Because you were that.
Richard: How did that go?
But you were able to buy all the rights back from him?
So we’re talking about stuff that he got, and then you got it back.
The Artist Is Present
It’s interesting that for a lot of people, and maybe people especially in New York City, you have to set aside a separate zone to stop and experience what we’re talking about in terms of energy.
It was like a venue that was given to experience these kinds of things.
And that’s something you’ve thought a lot about in your work, right? The present.
The Artist Is Present
What you said a minute ago, about people who don’t know much art theory coming upon your work at MoMA—that’s great. Any chance to welcome people from outside the art-world circle jerk into the actual experience of looking at art should be taken.
It’s interesting to hear that coming from a former communist. Groupthink was very important to the communist ethos, at least as practiced in Eastern Europe before the various collapses.
laughs
This zoo analogy, where the art is trapped like a sad animal—
Especially at art fairs. And you mentioned theory too. Do you find an exclusivity to the art world? The academic nature of the way people inside it talk to each other, along with the insane amounts of money that travel back and forth in it, lead to not a lot of entry points for the average citizen.
laughs
Do you think that kind of stuff needs to happen outside of institutions like MoMA? Sort of in more populist places?
Is this the thing that you’re doing in Hudson, New York?
Like a prefabricated life.
This part of the Hudson Valley is sort of an epicenter of art life outside the city. So, I was really excited when I was reading the catalog from the MoMA show and I saw that you’d selected a text by Alexandra David-Néel. I love her. I think she was amazing.
Did you identify with her? Did you take inspiration from her?
Sloppy seconds.
It’s embedded in the rock.
And what about us?
It seems like through your work you can tap into some of it, though.
Is the danger and pain in your work a means to amplify the present?
You’ve said that around 1989, you felt the need for change, for laughter, pleasure, and glamour.
Oh, is this the celebration? The closing reception for the MoMA show? Yeah. You looked very glamorous.
Just for those who don’t know, this was your final piece with Ulay. You each started at one end of the Great Wall and then walked until you met each other.
You do come off as very much an ascetic in your work.
Yes.
The ovation lasted for like 15 minutes.
There’s a lot of inner turmoil going on in New York, yeah.
There’s also this idea of a staring contest.
That’s incredible.
Do you think that will fade?
Do you remember the woman I was just talking about?
That’s something I was going to ask you about. I wondered if issues of mortality had anything to do with you thinking about time so much in your work.
Give me some names.
People will need to do their own research.