In 1974, Marina Abramović performed a career-defining work at a small experimental gallery in Naples, Italy. The Serbian artist stood naked next to a table on which she had arranged 72 objects associated with pleasure and pain. They included a bunch of grapes, a jar of honey, a feather, a whip, chains, a scalpel and a gun.
Accompanying text instructed the audience: “There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired. I am the object.” The performance, entitled Rhythm 0, lasted for six hours, during which Abramović was tickled, cut, written on and chained. Everything was documented by photographers, whose presence she had arranged. When someone held the (allegedly loaded) gun to the artist’s neck, the performance ended.
Half a century later, Abramović is the celebrated grand dame of live, performance, or body art. In this avant garde practice, the artist’s body takes the place of the object as the means of expression. She is also the first woman in the Royal Academy of Arts’ history to have a solo retrospective in its main galleries.
