Marina Abramovich 512 Durational Performance at the Serpentine Gallery in London.

Serpentine Gallery

While the cabbies were protesting in Central London I left Uni to go to the Serpentine Gallery to see the exhibition by Marina Abramovich. Can't really call it an exhibition because her work is a mix of things. I was left wondering if it was done in the right setting....should this be in an art gallery at all? It's like if you went to the Theatre but instead of a play you saw a line of paintings..What I mean is that it's a completely different experience from what you expect it to be and this can be either good or bad, and I will tell you why.

 

Marina Abramovich inside the Serpentine Gallery
 

Firstly I was very lucky - the queue was not long at all. I went in straightaway; before you entered the Gallery you had to leave behind your belongings, mobile phones, watch, basically you were asked to leave your 'armour' behind because this is a distraction to what she is trying to do inside the Gallery. After I left all  my stuff behind in a locker I went inside the Gallery, in the main room of the Gallery there were several people standing then I saw Marina Abramovich going up to one person and taking them for a walk, she did this several times with different people. She is obsessive and regularly repeats things and whispered in their ears, nobody was talking or communicating with each other, some were standing and some lying down. An elderly man moved to the main platform and started just gently moving his feet against the platform making a really light sound; he was just going with the flow. Because what he was actually doing was putting his finger in the fault line of the durational performance, that he wasn't free to express himself  even in silence ( he was hardly making any noise).  A Gallery attendant went up to him and moved him on to a chair, the man was visibly upset but he sat in the chair and started waving to someone opposite him; they did not respond to him, a classic example of alienation  and of group compliance. Basically he had disrupted, knowingly or unknowingly, the performance but Abramovich wasn't even in the same room when he did it & other people didn't seem to be bothered by him....So this gentle, elderly man was taken out by force and kicked out by security for just moving his feet against the floor and what is more worrying is that nobody helped him, or backed him up which I thought was appalling and also made me think of mind control and group behaviour (everyone conforming with the group).

Marina Abramovich Vogue

This made me deduce several things. One, that really it wasn't a free event where you could express yourself freely so basically you were free inside the Gallery but on Marina Abramovich's terms and on the Gallery's own terms. Entering the Gallery and leaving all your stuff behind is not for you to feel liberated like Abramovich suggests but rather is conforming to her ideas; you are asked to leave your armour behind (she doesn't want people with baggage but I think she has got plenty of her own!)which I found sinister and verging on cultism, as you are accepting Freedom on her terms but most importantly because through her 'performance' she is trying to bring people to an uncharged territory and to do so she bombards the viewer emotionally. She is playing with the viewer's emotions while working with energy  and the problem is you might not be aware she is doing this which is dangerous  because some people might have mental problems so their behavioural traits would make it impossible for them to conform to what she is trying to do and they might get ungrounded before they realise what is happening to them.

You see, all the security and the Gallery are not there to protect you the viewer but are there to protect her, Marina Abramovich, so if you have an emotional reaction to what she is doing nobody will help you and you will be left to pick up the pieces afterwards. If you find yourself unexpectedly in this situation please breathe into your stomach, take off your shoes, and go outside and walk in the grass in the park; basically reground yourself.

There were very interesting behavioural dynamics inside the Gallery; how would you feel if you stayed all day inside the Gallery or every day  and you weren't chosen by Abramovich to walk with her but you saw everybody else getting picked up by her? Wouldn't this frustrate you, make you angry? Don't worry she is just playing with you emotionally, creating drama. I mean all the other people that got picked up by her looked ecstatic, happy, then later were raving about her.  At the same time you have been filmed all the time, yes because before you enter the Gallery they tell you that you can't film her or take photos ( that's  how she makes money from the film); this is controlling, it made me think of the books by George Orwell, you are in a compressed environment with strangers, being filmed with no privacy. The whole performance is like being in the theatre with no plot where everything moves within restricted parameters. Why would anybody want to go in a Gallery and see this what do they get out of it? I didn't experience anything ground-breaking about her work while I was there. I mean her work is based on Yves Klein and the idea of giving priority to the process instead of the product. So the process of art-making is more important than the final product; it is also body based work like most of her previous work. So there are other artists that have worked with the body such as Vito Acconci, Yvonne Rainer, Chris Burden, Gina Pane. Also she based her work ( and by this I mean the energy side of it) on Shamanic practises, in some of her previous work where the viewer was allowed to inflict wounds on her this was based on a specific Shamanic practise where the Shamanic Practitioner serves the community by becoming the legitimate central focus of affliction for the community, but she has twisted it and again was playing with the public emotions by putting herself naked so arousing erotic emotions in the viewer but by asking the viewer to behave in the opposite way from erotic feelings, creating drama see below..She also shares Nikola Tesla's (Yugoslavian scientist who castrated himself) interest in energy and transmission.

But I also felt that she had issues with her body, that on some level she hates her body and herself so she doesn't see the body in a positive way, as a vehicle one can do positive work with. In some interviews she stated we should just 'be energy' which again is misguided and dangerous. Going back to her previous work, she was the object of others' gaze and she presented herself as a commodity for capitalist consumption, but in the current performance the viewer is the object of that gaze and she is working more with energy to make people feel they are in the present moment. For her the artist should not have any 'objects between him/her and the public viewer, just a direct energy dialogue' but here it is in the wrong setting, being filmed and in a public performance which doesn't make any sense. The space is not intimate at all like she described it, I repeat you are in a room full of strangers while being filmed (voyeuristic spying) not really in control which is not a good place for 'energy exchange' as any good energy worker can tell you, you are actually being bombarded with other people's energy & you have her playing with you emotionally.

When I came out of the Gallery I experienced Marina Abramovich's fans; one man told me he travelled all the way from the USA to see her, they were all exulted, high. One said I have been touched by her which made me think of events of a religious nature with a Guru or Cult leader where groups can be divided into people who love the Guru and those who don't; all of this was very much present here.

It made me think of the nature of Celebrity: do they go and see her because they think she can transform and give meaning to their life or because she is famous? The people I spoke to outside the Gallery were telling me how amazing she is and didn't want to hear a different point of view.

Chris Rojek & John Frow wrote about  how Celebrity today contains significant parallels with the functions normally ascribed to religion, religious leaders. They both wrote about that through celebrities it is possible to belong to something beyond the particular culture. I think this is very much present with Marina Abramovich. Why would anybody sit in front of her on her own terms to experience being present?  If you want to experience being present you can just meditate in your own room like a lot of people do on a daily basis.. oh but this might be hard work and you are not part of anything or being filmed... The majority of people that I saw at her performance were well educated arty types like me, no average Joes in there.

As to Abramovich's performance, I am very glad to be out of her 'controlling mad chamber'. On TV she said she would have ripped of a Bacon painting; I think this just underlines that she is not appreciative of other forms of art apart from body performance especially her own. Anybody who tells you they can make you experience being present or transform your life is actually using you and your time for their own purpose and you are allowing them to do so. A lot of people take her too seriously; if you feel uncomfortable at any given moment inside the Gallery please leave, don't succumb to peer pressure.

The Time Magazine called her one of the most influential artists of our times; I think someone at The Time Magazine must be drinking or is part of her PR machine.

Key elements in her work are: role playing, staging, repetition, body art, theatre, energy work.

Body art means work in real time, they create a work of art using the body and this is available for future reference only in the form of films, or documentaries. Unless you are Marina Abramovich and you have decided to re-perform other people's work which many find unethical including her previous partner, artist and collaborator Ulay.

Marina Abramovich with Ulay

If you suffer from mental problems don't go to this 'performance;' you are putting yourself at risk if you go; don't stay too long, again you might be putting yourself at risk. Also I am not sure it is suitable if you are Autistic or for  children as they like to move about and be free and they couldn't care less about 'experiencing the void'. In the Gallery leaflet is said children under 12 are not allowed in.