Pure Raw: Performance, Pedagogy, and (Re)presentation

Abstract

Marina Abramovic ; has been pushing the limits of performance for over three decades. From 1965–70 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade, and soon after that at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, where she later taught. In 1970 she began working with sound environments, film, video, and performance. Five years later she met the artist Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen) in Amsterdam, with whom she worked until 1988. Together they devised performances that centered on the limits of human endurance, consciousness, and perception. Working independently since then, she has exhibited, performed, and taught internationally, establishing a body of work whose combination of extremity and intimacy is singular in the history of performance. In 1996 she completed two important theatre pieces, Biography and Delusional, and the following year her controversial performance Balkan Baroque won the International Venice Biennale Award. She received the Niedersachsicher Kunstpreis as well as the New York Dance and Performance Award for her recent performance/exhibition The House with the Ocean View at the Sean Kelly Gallery. For her November 2005 exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Marina Abramovic ; : Seven Easy Pieces, she will re-perform seminal works by Vito Acconci, Joseph Beuys, VALIE EXPORT, Bruce Nauman, Gina Pane, as well as her own Lips of Thomas, and premiere a new performance. This interview is based on three conversations with the artist, the first of which took place in October, 2004 (Amsterdam), and the other two in April, 2005 (New York), around the time of her participation in the “(Re)presenting Performance” symposium at the Guggenheim Museum.