[artinfo] Marina Abramovic: Seven Easy Pieces

[e-Flux]

Marina Abramovic: Seven Easy Pieces
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
5th Ave at 89th St
New York, NY

Dedicated to Susan Sontag

From November 9 through November 15, the Solomon 
R. Guggenheim Museum presents Marina Abramovic: 
Seven Easy Pieces, seven consecutive nights of 
performances in the Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda 
from 5 PM to 12 AM.

  Since the early 1970s, Marina Abramovic has 
pioneered the use of performance as a visual art 
form. The body has always served as her subject 
and medium, and the parameters of her early works 
were determined by her endurance. Exploring the 
physical and mental limits of her being, she has 
withstood pain, exhaustion, and danger in the 
quest for transformation. With Seven Easy Pieces 
Abramovic reenacts seminal performance works by 
her peers dating from the 1960s and ’70s. The 
project is premised on the fact that little 
documentation exists for most performances from 
this critical early period; one often has to rely 
upon testimonies from witnesses or photographs 
that show only portions of any given piece. Seven 
Easy Pieces examines the possibility of redoing 
and preserving an art form that is, by nature, 
ephemeral.

Abramovic will perform the following works:

Wed, November 9: Bruce Nauman, Body Pressure 
(1974). Nauman constructed a false wall nearly 
identical in size to an existing wall behind it. 
A pink poster with black typeface invited 
visitors to perform their own action by pressing 
against the wall.

Thurs, November 10: Vito Acconci, Seedbed (1972). 
Acconci occupied the space under a false floor, 
masturbating and speaking through a microphone to 
visitors walking above in an attempt to establish 
an “intimate” connection with them.

Fri, November 11: VALIE EXPORT, Action Pants: 
Genital Panic (1969). Wearing pants with the 
crotch removed, EXPORT walked through an art 
cinema, offering the spectators visual contact 
with a real female body. Walking up and down the 
aisles, she challenged the audience to look at 
reality instead of passively enjoying images of 
women on the screen.

Sat, November 12: Gina Pane, The Conditioning, 
first action of Self-Portrait(s) (1973). Pane lay 
on a metal bed above lit candles for 
approximately thirty minutes. Her suffering was 
apparent to the audience, who witnessed her 
wringing her hands in pain.

Sun, November 13: Joseph Beuys, How to Explain 
Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965). With his head 
covered in honey and gold leaf, Beuys cradled a 
dead hare, showing it pictures on the wall and 
whispering to it. He wore an iron sole on his 
right foot and a felt sole on his left.

Mon, November 14: Marina Abramovic, Lips of 
Thomas (1975). Abramovic ate a kilogram of honey 
and drank a liter of red wine out of a glass. She 
then broke the glass with her hand, incised a 
star in her stomach with a razor blade, and 
whipped herself until she “no longer felt pain.” 
She lay down on an ice cross while a space heater 
suspended above caused her to bleed more 
profusely.

Tues, November 15: Marina Abramovic, Entering the 
Other Side (2005). Abramovic premieres a new 
performance created specifically for this project.



For updated information please call (212) 
432-3500 or visit 
<http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/opening_soon/index.html>http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/opening_soon/index.html