Marina Abramovic attacked with portrait of herself
September 24, 2018
Radical performance artist Marina Abramovic was attacked at a retrospective of her work in Florence on Sunday when a portrait of the artist was smashed over her head. A Czech national was arrested after the incident.
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"We're fine, everything is fine," wrote Arturo Galansino, director of the Palazzo Strozzi gallery where the attack occurred. Along with his statement, he also posted on Facebook a selfie taken together with Marina Abramovic. While both appeared to be calm, the motive behind the attack is still not clear.
One of the most radical figures in performance art, Abramovic is famous for using her body as a tool for self-expression.
The assailant, who is a Czech Republic national, has since been arrested, according to German press agency dpa.
Italian media say the wood-framed painting used in the incident is a portrait of Abramovic that was painted by the attacker. The attack occurred immediately after the artist held a signing for her book, Marina Abramovic Interviews 1976-2018, part of a week of events featuring Abramovic to kick off her retrospective titled "The Cleaner."
As quoted in the Daily Beast, Abramovic told Italian media how the man "came up to me looking into my eyes and I smiled at him thinking he was giving me a gift … In a split second I saw his facial expression change and he became violent, coming toward me very quickly and with force."
"These dangers arrive quickly, just like death," she added.
She wants to ask the man why he did it, according to Galansino.
Marina Abramovic: A lifelong performance
She's renowned throughout the world for her extreme performance art: Marina Abramovic has greatly influenced the genre for more than 40 years, easing its way into the world's big art museums.
She laid naked on blocks of ice, cut herself and screamed until she lost her voice: Marina Abramovic used her body as a radical tool of expression like no other artist before her. A look back at the life and work.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
1973: Pain, but no pain
Her first performance involved playing the Russian game with 10 knives and two tape recorders. It was an eye-opener for her: "I felt as though my body had no limits, as though pain couldn't affect me anymore, as though nothing mattered anymore — an exhilarating experience," Marina Abramovic wrote in her autobiography. "At that moment, I knew that I had found the medium that was right for me."
Marina Abramovic, born to two partisans, grew up in Belgrade. She was privileged in that she was given an art education, but she also felt lonely and was often beaten by her mother. The oppression of Tito's regime in former communist Yugoslavia often features in her hazardous works. During this performance in Belgrade, she was rescued from flames by people in the audience.
Image: Nebojsa Cankovic/Marina Abramovic Archives
1975: Artistic development
In her early works, injuries inflicted by herself or others, nudity and unconsciousness were means of expression she frequently used. This was the artist's way of protesting against decorative esthetics that had marked her youth: "I was convinced that art ought to be disturbing, that it should pose questions while being trendsetting."
An encounter with German artist Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen) heralded a new era in Abramovic's work. They fell in love at first sight and worked as a creative team from then on. Their cooperation started off with a noteworthy performance at the Venice Biennale with both artists colliding against each other with their naked bodies — for 58 minutes.
Image: Ulay/Marina Abramović/Moderna Museet
1978: Creative fusion
The two artists lived and worked together for 12 years. It can be assumed that they spent half of that time on an artistic flight of fancy. Totally free, they lived in a small Citroen bus for four years, traveling to various locations where they were invited to give performances.
Even their separation in 1988 was sealed with a performance. In a piece called "The Great Wall Walk," they walked towards each other along the Great Wall of China, starting at opposite ends and meeting in the middle. The work was originally planned as a romantic manifesto, but they ended up doing the three-month walk to end their relationship. They separated, both as a couple, and as a team.
Rather than slowing down Marina Abramovic's output, the separation actually inspired her. In 1997, she was invited to present her work in the international section of the Venice Biennale. She was awarded a Golden Lion for her performance "Balkan Baroque," dealing with the Balkan Wars, in which she spent seven hours a day washing a mountain of bloody cow bones, over four days.
Her bone action was reminiscent of an earlier series of video performances called "Cleaning the Mirror," which was later reperformed in retrospectives of her work. Reperformances are an opportunity to preserve some of her performance artworks. Since the 1990s, she has also been transmitting her "Abramovic Method" to young performance artists.
Abramovic moved to New York in 2000, where she developed theater pieces, performances and encounters with other artists. It took the American public quite some time to accept her art. In "House with The Ocean View," the artist spent 12 days in three open rooms. Her vision for this piece was to transform the energy field between herself and the viewers.
The exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art was not only a comprehensive retrospective featuring re-performances of her best known works. She herself was present for three months so that the visitors could meet her personally — a huge success. The surrounding media hype helped her reach not only an elite interested in modern art, but a very broad public as well.
Image: Marco Anelli /Marina Abramovic Archives
2020: Remembering an icon
In 2020 the artist debuted the operatic project, "7 Deaths of Maria Callas," at Munich's Bayerische Staatsoper, which she re-enacted the deaths of an opera star whom she idolized. "Like many of the opera heroines she created on stage, she too died of love. She died of a broken heart," said Abramovic.
Image: Aris Messinis/AFP
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The alleged attacker is previously known for his own kind of spontaneous public performance art, with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera noting that he has twice been seen nude in public in Florence, once lying on fake dollar bills.
From September 21, 2018 to January 20, 2019 Palazzo Strozzi hosts a major Abramovic retrospective that brings together more than a hundred works from the 1970s to the 2000s, including videos, photographs, paintings, objects, installations, and live recreations of her infamous performances.