I’m probably equal parts (this ratio may be inaccurate) excited and dreading the major survey exhibition of work by the doyenne of performance art, Marina AbramoviÄ, opening later this month at the Royal Academy. One of the Serbian artist’s most memorable works is Rest Energy (1980) in which she and her partner, Ulay, held the limb and the string of a loaded bow and leaned apart, so that if Ulay’s finger slipped, he would shoot his lover through the heart. You can see why I’m a bit daunted.
But what took me aback as I was reading about it this week was the striking fact that this is the first solo show by a woman in the RA’s Main Galleries. Oof. Once it just felt like a major achievement to be the first woman to do a thing. That remains so, but now it feels increasingly like frustrating evidence that women are still pushing against a firmly bolted door.
