Marina Abramovic at Sean Kelly - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

The best twinkling to experience Marina Abramovic's exhibition was upon opening night, when she gave a remarkable two-hour performance in conjunction with several video projections. individual of the projections showed Abramovic, in a slinky black dres and high heels, dancing the tango alone in an devoid of contents white room. Another showed her kneeling, shirtless, and furiously flogging her have a title to back with a whip. In a video throw outed above the gallery entrance she made Buddhist meditative motions with her hands, and in still another she slept with her face overlayed by crystals, which shifted and clicked with her breathing. In their divergent ways, all of these videos -- which were originally part of her installation Spirit House, newly presented in a former slaughter-house in Portugal -- regard solitary paths to altered states of consciousness.

Faced with of the like kind evocative images, it was easy to imagine that the stark naked figure on the gallery's central, front-facing wall, seemingly levitating not on the ground and wearing single a pair of low profits was also a projection, or perhaps a wax figure. on the other hand it was Abramovic herself, supported single by a bicycle seat attached to the wall and by the agency of thin foot-rests. Exposed like that before the opening-night multitude Abramovic engaged in a machiavelian and grueling action, titled Luminosity. It involved her remaining motionless for an reach forthed period before ritualistically raising her arms above her head in ultra-slow motion, and then just as slowly lowering them. (Later, this live performance was replaced by the agency of a video of Abramovic executing similar movements) Aspiration and limitation, grace and endurance, vulnerability and power, physical pain and palpable eroticism -- all came together, along with regards to charged Christian symbols like crucifixions and ascensions.

Abramovic remains a cathartic artist, with a rare ability to make things sizzle around her. As you studied her face, it became clear that while she was in this absurdly expos position, a large part of her was elsewhere -- in a concentrated interior girth from which, in all likelihood, the power to carry on the outside such performances emanates. It's that power, which in the extremity you can call spiritual, that made this performance, and indeed the whole display so compelling.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group