MARINA ABRAMOVIC
8 LESSONS ON EMPTINESS WITH A HAPPY END
Catalogue in collaboration with Bärtschi Gallery
May 24th – August 30th 2008
The latest works of Marina Abramovic 8 LESSONS ON EMPTINESS WITH A HAPPY END focus on the violence in contemporary media society, and our non - receptivity in front of these images. By conjuring a kind of particular emptiness, close to what a dream may involve as reality in human memory, and by recognition of this by the viewer, her performance leads to an experience of a gradual higher state of being.
The gallery will show a five-channel video work consisting in a long frieze of two vertical, two horizontal, and one central image. 8 LESSONS uses archetypal images of warfare out of the territory of TV and video games versus images of harmonious Laos landscapes with the aura of spirituality. Abramovic’s continuous investigation of performative construction of subjectivity restores the meaning of the representation of the human body. From abstract objects to their subject hood, the scenes played by children and the artist are experienced by the spectator as a psycho-drama. This experience comes close to the one we have when looking at the images of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, where the distance between real and staged life, reverses the meaning of reality. Our self - defense so well encoded to keep reality at bay is diverted here to a real believe in what we see. The viewer feels compassion and responsibility. In the case of 8 LESSONS, the images enacted by the children are real. Through this process, Marina Abramovic gives a redemptive quality to her work.
The video work is accompanied by a photographic body of work entitled -THE FAMILY- (from the series of works THE QUIET IN THE LAND): Large format photos produced in Laos in 2008 depict child soldiers in different stages of war: carrying the captive, dead after the battle, negotiations, execution, resting or mimicking trophy of war to assert victory. The photographs are not glorifying war as such. Instead, they subvert the logic of war photos by providing a both ironic and moving answer to exploitive photographs of children in war.
Narrative Biography: Marina Abramovic was born in 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Beginning her career in the early 1970-s she has pioneered the use of performance in visual art. The body has always been both her subject and medium. As a vital member of the generation of Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, and Chris Burden, Abramovic is the only one still making important durational works. From 1975 –1988 she performed with German artist Ulay. After separation, she performs with sound, photography, video, sculpture and ‘Transitory Objects for Human and Non Human Use’. She had major solo exhibitions in the U.S. and in Europe: the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Neue National Galerie, Berlin; The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; Venice Biennale 1976 and 1997, Venice; Documenta VI, VII, IX, Kassel; The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburg; Kunstmuseum and Grosse Halle, Bern; La Galleria Valencia, Valencia; Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover. She participated in the show Berlin-Moscow beginning at the Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin and finishing its tour at the State Historical Museum, Moscow. Exhibition in the Whitney Biennale, N.Y.; the Maruame Museum of Contemporary Art and the Kumamoto Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan.
Marina Abramovic has taught and lectured at: the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst Hamburg, the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, and became Professor for Performance Art at the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Braunschweig where she taught for seven years . Abramovic was awarded the Honorary Doctorate from the Art Institue, Chicago. In 1997, she received the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the Venice Biennale. In 1997 she received the Bessie for ‘the House with Ocean View’, a 12 days performance at the Sean Kelly Gallery, N.Y.
The show 8 LESSONS ON EMPTINESS WITH A HAPPY END is the first show of Marina Abramovic in Luxemburg. beaumontpublic / Paris will invite Marina Abramovic to talk about her work during Fiac 2008, in the temporary spaces, Hôtel de Vaux, 17 rue St. Gilles, Paris.
2011: THE LIFE & DEATH OF MARINA ABRAMOVIC, Directed by Robert Wilson Manchester (UK) – N.Y. (US)