Marina Abramović

Marina Abramović turns 79 today. 

Artists’ Chocolate

 

Marina Abramovic | 100 letters 1965 - 1979

Marina Abramovic

100 letters 1965 - 1979

Paris, France: Onestar Press, 2008

197 pp., 29.7 × 21 cm., softcover

Edition of 1000

An Artist’s Book assembling of the first sentence of every letter the artist received between 1965 and 1979. These include correspondence between friends and family members with a wide variety of topics discussed, such as: food in the fridge, requests for wool, travel plans, birth announcements and artworks being framed. The text is in English and Serbian. 

"Since I was very young, until my early thirties, I had serious problems in opening and reading any letters I received. Letters would stay on my table for weeks before I found the courage to open them, and during this time my sense of guilt would grow and grow.

Most of the time, when I finally opened the letters, it was too late to answer them and my sense of guilt was worse than ever.

I kept every single letter, from the first notes received from my mother, in I965, up to the time I left Belgrade for ever in I979. I decided to chronologically write down the first sentence from all of these letters, without noting the name of the senders. When finished, I was astonished to see how it was possible to trace all my life just by reading the text created by all these first lines.

Later I heard that Marcel Duchamp, on receiving a letter, opened, answered, and immediately burnt the letter he’d received.

Jean Tinguely never opened or answered any letter, and every Christmas he made a ritual of burning unopened envelopes, which sometimes included important information and even checks.”

- Marina Abramovic

Laurie Anderson on Desert Island Discs today

I have an unusual and possibly unfair contempt for radio, and haven’t purposefully tuned in since my teens.  But I’ve always enjoyed BBC Radio’s Desert Island Discs, an archive of which is housed on the BBC website.

The series began in 1942 and is now approaching three and a half thousand episodes. The format remains largely the same, with the guest (or “castaway”) asked to choose eight recordings, a book and a luxury item that they would want with them if stranded on a desert island. 

In 2019, a panel of industry experts voted the program the greatest radio series of all time. 

I’m drawn to the show because I like to hear people talk about their work, and the ways that other culture has influenced them. 

They book mostly celebrities with occasional left field choice like a puppeteer, dog trainer, clown, death-row lawyer, medium or teddy bear expert. 

Periodically they will invite artists onto the show, mostly if they've won the Turner Prize or their work crosses over into pop culture. This is not a criticism - often artists communicate best through their work. 

Laurie Anderson’s primary medium is storytelling, so it’s surprising this is the first time she will appear on the show. She joins artists Marina Abramović, Sonia Boyce, Peter Doig, Jeremy Deller, Antony Gormley, Lubaina Himid, Steve McQueen, Yoko Ono, Grayson Perry, and Rachel Whiteread, who have all previously participated . 

The program airs today and typically can be downloaded, for free, a week or two after the initial air date. 

Marina Abramovic & Ulay | Relation / Works 3 Performances

Marina Abramovic / Ulay

Relation / Works 3 Performances

Innsbruck, Austria: Galerie Krinzinger, 1978

[46 pp.], 16.5 x 24.5 cm., softcover

Edition of 1200

An early bookwork by Ulay & Abramovic featuring photo documentation of three performance works from the Relation series: Relation in Space, Relation in Movement, and Relation in Time. The title also includes an index of performances, films, video tapes, bibliography, biography and excerpts from a dialogue between the artists and Heide Grundmann.

"As the Relation Works went on, the theme of immobility became increasingly pervasive. In Relation in Time, 1977, the two sat motionless back to back for 16 hours, tied together by their hair. (“Hair is a kind of antenna, like air roots of trees,” Ulay says.) The audience was admitted to watch the 17th and final hour of motionlessness. What was being exhibited in the immobility pieces was not a waxworks; these were mute and unmoving monuments, yet seething with inner life and sentience, will and activity. It was that inner life transpiring invisibly within the immobile body that was the object exhibited—“something that comes into being but remains invisible,” as Marina and Ulay have described the intended subject of their work. This inner life was not a matter of day dreams or trances; like Buddhist vipassana meditators, Ulay and Marina strove, in their immobility performances, to keep their attention continually alert upon the present moment as it unfolded around and within them."

-  Thomas McEvilley, Artforum

Artists' Pillows

 

Pillows and pillowcases by Miranda July, Lucas Grogan, Bless, Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber, Marina Abramovic, and Christian Marclay. 

(I remember a Pipilotti Rist book from about twenty years ago that came with a pillow case, but I can't locate it now). 

Marina Abramovic | Remembering Pillow Case

Marina Abramovic

Remembering Pillow Case 

Melbourne, Australia: Third Drawer Down, [nd]

73 x 48 cm.

Edition size unknown

A 100% silk pillowcase digitally printed to read "Try to remember the moment between being awake and falling asleep."

Available from the publisher, here, for $120.00 AUD. 

Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic turns 75 today.