Marina Abramović seduces everyone she meets. This is something one can tell even if one had never met her. Yesterday morning she presented her new performance piece at the Serpentine Gallery in London and she seduced everyone, including myself.
If anyone thought that The Artist Is Present was the most radical undertaking of the pioneer of performance art, they couldn’t be more wrong. In The Artist Is Present she stated that the hardest thing is to do something which is close to nothing. However, this time she declared that for the first time in her career she doesn’t have a plan – absolutely nothing. Abramović is pushing her limits and infusing the variable of the unknown and unplanned into her performance.
After a career spanning over 40 years, Abramović goes further and experiments again. In 512 Hours, Abramović is looking to find a personal connection with every single person attending her performance. Since she parted ways with her artistic and romantic partner, Ulay, Abramović has made the audience her new partner in her art.
She will personally open the museum every day at 10.00 am and will close it at 6.00 pm, six days a week, for a total of 512 hours. No cameras, watches, smartphones or any kind of electronic devices are allowed in the gallery. According to Abramović, it is necessary that the spectator does not have a sense of time. She says that time is something that the human being has lost and this is a way he might take it back.
The piece 512 Hours is all about giving the present its own time and taking time for ourselves. It’s a cleansing process in which the artist will receive energy (positive or negative) from the audience and will transform it and give it back under another form of energy. Performance is energy.
This exhibit is just about this performance. No other works by Abramović will be shown. In 512 Hours, Abramović will just interact with the audience and she will need the public to complete the piece. This time she is very generous to the audience. Once again she exposes herself to the possibility of failure. This failure may come Abramović’s concentration or energy. Perhaps the failure may come from the audience who may react like an unsatisfied lover.
Marina Abramović
Photograph © 2014 by Marco Anelli
Marina Abramović
Photograph © 2014 by Marco Anelli
Marina Abramović
Photograph © 2014 by Marco Anelli
by Fausta Maria Bolettieri
Marina Abramovic 512 Hours is at Serpentine Gallery from June 11 until August 25, 2014(closed 1&2 July)
Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London W2 3XA
information@serpentinegalleries.org