The Serbian artist Marina Abramovic, who has pushed the limits of her body and her audience to the extreme, invites us to take a silent break to cut ourselves off from the frenzy of a world saturated by technology.
The Kunsthaus Zurich is devoting a retrospective of the 55 years of career of the 78-year-old artist.
For the occasion, she created an installation entitled “Decompression chamber” in which she invites visitors to separate themselves from their mobile phones and their watches, to wear headphones that completely isolate them from external noise before lie down on a deck chair, relax, lose track of time and seek to reconnect with themselves.
“This decompression chamber is my response to the overuse of technology,” explains the artist in an email to AFP.
“This allows visitors to get in touch with what is happening here and now, and to go inside themselves,” she explains.
“It’s an opportunity to detach yourself from what’s external and connect with what’s internal,” she continues, in a world where people “take photos with their phones before they’ve even done the experience of the work they are seeing.
At the end of June, during the Glastonbury rock festival in England, the Serbian artist called on the crowd to remain silent for 7 minutes to take the time to meditate on the state of the world while she stood on stage in a white dress in the shape of a peace sign.
These recent works on silence contrast with other performances earlier in his career, of which the Kunsthaus presents several videos.
We see the artist screaming to the point of exhaustion, flogging herself for hours completely naked or frantically washing a pile of bloody cattle bones to illustrate the horror of the war of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia.
– Performances perturbantes –
The Belgrade-born artist is known for her performances that challenge the body and push visitors to their limits, sometimes into the darkest corners of the soul.
The exhibition notably projects photos from a 1974 performance which propelled her to the forefront of the artistic scene.
She invited the public to do absolutely whatever they wanted with her, with 72 objects available.
Called “rhythm 0”, the experience had degenerated, the public ending up increasing the abuse against the artist.
One man went so far as to grab a gun, load it and try to force Marina Abramovic to pull the trigger.
The museum has reconstituted the table of objects which include a rose, a feather, grapes as well as an axe, saw, arrow, chains and knives.
This retrospective, which lasts until February 26, 2025, combines video recordings and live performances.
To access the exhibition, visitors must first squeeze between a completely naked man and woman.
The museum warns from the outset that the exhibition contains disturbing scenes.
“It’s very difficult, but I’m glad to have seen it,” reacted Winfried Knust, a 61-year-old visitor, as he left the exhibition. “It opens the mind and asks questions about what we define as art,” he confides to AFP.
But “it’s too much for me,” admits Lilo Mühlemann, a retiree, 74 years old. “She is a fascinating woman, but currently there is already so much violence in this world that I need more harmonious things,” she admits.
According to Mirjam Varadinis, the curator of the exhibition, “the reactions are very varied”.
This retrospective is “a unique experience” to immerse oneself in the artist’s universe, but “it is not an exhibition that passes without leaving a trace, it creates strong emotions”, explains Ms. Varadinis to the AFP.
“The museum guards told me that people don’t have the same expression on their faces when they enter and leave the exhibition.”
