Marina Abramovic Essay

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The Artist is Present: Marina Abramovic In the last few weeks, with several tragedies occurring in the world, ethnocentrism is very present and even when talking about social, political and economic issues as well as, art. The term art in the past, has been given the definition of being primarily based on aesthetic beauty, and not focused on the emotional construct that art also possesses. Similarly, gender roles encourage women to conform to their norms the same way society thinks art should just be an aspect of beauty. The emergence on performance art in the late sixties, was a way of challenging painting to add an emphasis on the feeling art gives through performance. Marina Abramovic, performance artist, uses her performances as a tool …show more content…

She explores limits in depth through a mental and psychological struggle. According to Chris Chang, the exhibition of Marina Abramovic consisted of two chairs, a table in between both chairs, herself and her audience lasted 736 hours (73). In this performance, Abramovic sat and stared at people who came to sit in front of her, some sat for a minute and others for an entire day (Cotter). In addition, over the course of three months, she wore a similar dress in three different colours: red, blue and white, and had her hair braided towards the side. While she sat in front of another chair left for audience to participate in,“her routine seldom varied […]There was one variable, a big one: her audience.”(Cotter). This demonstrates that the whole performance relied on her audience and more specifically the people who chose to sit in front her. In the documentary about this whole experience of this work, viewers can see that Marina Abramovic kept a straight face in front of approximately a thousand and four hundred people, except one: Ulay. The moment where Ulay sat across from her, they both started to cry and they said they loved each other and then he departed, this moment unarguably captivated everyone at the MoMA

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