![]() ![]() Elsewhere, an effigy of her in black wax is embellished with slivers of “black tourmaline”. In one artfully derelict kitchen scene, she appears like a cast member of The Handmaid’s Tale, carrying a pail of milk. There she is again, her features semi-hidden beneath gold leaf. Here she is with an octopus upon her head. Much of this exhibition’s second half consists of melodramatic, superficial images of the artist with the quality of film stills or a glossy spread in a magazine. Ritualised cleansing, in the form of scrubbing bones, is one of her motifs – but, ultimately, Abramović has ended up sanitising herself. The result? Narcissistic art, devoid of risk, with none of the rigorous, visceral, blood-spattered toughness of old. Over time, though, as Abramović became less concerned with corporeal endurance, and more interested in trialling her mind, she started to believe the hype. Is there a more egregious case of an artist, over the decades, losing their way? Those performances from the Seventies and Eighties – many of them collaborations with her then-partner, the German artist Ulay – still seem radical and courageous, with something urgent to say about, for instance, the complex relations between men and women, or the gendered roles that society forces us to play. Plus, those “reperformances” – including one in which an acolyte lies naked beneath a skeleton, and Luminosity (1997), which involves another nude artiste, this time with arms and legs outstretched, sitting for half an hour upon a bicycle saddle affixed halfway up a wall – summon something of the “energy flow” between artist and audience that Abramovic seeks. ![]() ![]() To anyone who has followed the artist’s five-decade career, much of this imagery will be familiar – yet, the mise-en-scène (involving, for instance, vast screens) is mostly compelling and dramatic. Yes, the curator, Andrea Tarsia, inevitably relies upon scratchy black-and-white photography and footage of Abramović’s painful, and sometimes life-threatening, early performances, in which she tested her body to its limits. Surprisingly, the trouble isn’t the challenge of staging a retrospective exhibition about an ephemeral form of art. “The pressure is very big,” she told me last autumn, anticipating the show. Shockingly, she’s the first woman to be honoured with a solo survey in the RA’s principal galleries in its 255-year history. Imponderabilia, as this artwork is known, is one of four “live reperformances” of well-known pieces by the Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović that are being staged as part of her new retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts. Is there a frisson? Who can say? I was too preoccupied with not stamping on their toes. After hesitating, I squeeze between them, and through. Inside a sombre gallery off Piccadilly, within a monumental, spotlit doorway, a man and woman, both naked, silently face each other, leaving just enough space for me to pass.
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