Marina Abramović art talk, Serpentine Sackler Gallery
This Frieze Week, Marina Abramović comes to London to talk candidly about her extraordinary life, career and pioneering performance art
Artist Talks: Marina Abramović, hosted by Fondation Beyeler and UBS.
During Frieze Week, the world's most prominent performance artist Marina Abramović will talk – in a live-streamed event with Hans Ulrich, Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries – at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery. The Yugoslavian artist will talk candidly - and we mean candidly - about her extraordinary life, career and pioneering performance art.
As performance art’s most famous proponent, Yugoslavian born Marina Abramović has helped define this genre over the past 40 years. She began her career in the 70’s crafting a language for performance art that focused on endurance. She sought to question the limits of her own body, and its use as an artistic tool. She got people talking from the start.
In 1974 in her native Belgrade, Abramović invited visitors to engage with her in whichever way they wanted, using a collection of 74 objects that included feather boas, knives, and even a loaded pistol. The result was bloody but not fatal. The following year a nude Abramović slowly drank a bottle of red wine, carved a five point communist star into her abdomen with razor blades, and violently whipped herself to then lay for 30 minutes on a cross made of ice.
In 2010, NYC's MoMA held a major retrospective of her work, The Artist is Present. During the 736-hour and 30-minute static, silent piece, Abramović sat immobile in the museum's atrium. During the run, spectators were invited to take turns sitting opposite her. Following its success, The Serpentine Gallery hosted 512 hours, her first ‘durational’ performance in London.
The upcoming Marina Abramović talk – the third in the Artist Talks series hosted by Foundation Beveler and UBS – will be a one-off opportunity to hear first-hand about the artist’s exploration of her own physical and mental limits in her quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. Whether through calculated balance, honest emotion, or emblazoned passion and determination, her spiritualistic approach to performance continues to set her apart as the self-titled ‘grandmother’ of performance art.
While tickets are now sold out, a number of tickets will be given away for free in a sweepstake each Tuesday leading up to the event on the Foundation Beyeler Facebook page. If you are not one of the lucky ones, tune into the Foundation Beyeler Facebook Page on 4 October 2017 at 7pm to see Marina Abramović in all her unadulterated glory.
As performance art’s most famous proponent, Yugoslavian born Marina Abramović has helped define this genre over the past 40 years. She began her career in the 70’s crafting a language for performance art that focused on endurance. She sought to question the limits of her own body, and its use as an artistic tool. She got people talking from the start.
In 1974 in her native Belgrade, Abramović invited visitors to engage with her in whichever way they wanted, using a collection of 74 objects that included feather boas, knives, and even a loaded pistol. The result was bloody but not fatal. The following year a nude Abramović slowly drank a bottle of red wine, carved a five point communist star into her abdomen with razor blades, and violently whipped herself to then lay for 30 minutes on a cross made of ice.
In 2010, NYC's MoMA held a major retrospective of her work, The Artist is Present. During the 736-hour and 30-minute static, silent piece, Abramović sat immobile in the museum's atrium. During the run, spectators were invited to take turns sitting opposite her. Following its success, The Serpentine Gallery hosted 512 hours, her first ‘durational’ performance in London.
The upcoming Marina Abramović talk – the third in the Artist Talks series hosted by Foundation Beveler and UBS – will be a one-off opportunity to hear first-hand about the artist’s exploration of her own physical and mental limits in her quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. Whether through calculated balance, honest emotion, or emblazoned passion and determination, her spiritualistic approach to performance continues to set her apart as the self-titled ‘grandmother’ of performance art.
While tickets are now sold out, a number of tickets will be given away for free in a sweepstake each Tuesday leading up to the event on the Foundation Beyeler Facebook page. If you are not one of the lucky ones, tune into the Foundation Beyeler Facebook Page on 4 October 2017 at 7pm to see Marina Abramović in all her unadulterated glory.
TRY CULTURE WHISPER
Receive free tickets & insider tips to unlock the best of London — direct to your inbox
| What | Marina Abramović art talk, Serpentine Sackler Gallery |
| Where | Serpentine Sackler Gallery, West Carriage Drive , Kensington Gardens, London , W2 2AR | MAP |
| Nearest tube | South Kensington (underground) |
| When |
On 04 Oct 17, 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM |
| Price | £free |
| Website | Please click here for more information |