Marina Abramovic Presents 512 Hours An Unique Serpentine Gallery Performance Piece

Marina Abramović will be presenting an unique new work at the Serpentine Gallery in London in June. The internationally acclaimed artist will perform in the Gallery for the duration of her exhibition: 10am to 6pm, 6 days a week. Creating the simplest of environments in the Gallery spaces, Abramović’s only materials will be herself, the audience and a selection of common objects that she will use in a constantly changing sequence of events. On arrival, visitors will both literally and metaphorically leave their baggage behind in order to enter the exhibition: bags, jackets, electronic equipment, watches and cameras may not accompany them. The public will become the performing body, participating in the delivery of an unprecedented moment in the history of performance art.

Marina Abramović is a pioneer of performance as an art form, using her own body as subject and object, she has pushed the physical and mental limits of her being. This is the first major performance by Abramović since her monumental piece The Artist is Present, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2010, in which visitors were invited to sit in silence opposite the artist and gaze into her eyes for an unspecified amount of time. Abramović performed this work every day for three months.

The exhibition draws upon the history of Abramović’s use of her body as the basic material of her artwork. During her residency at the Serpentine, the artist will, for the first time, commit to an unscripted and improvised presence in the space of the Gallery.

In the early 1970s, as a young artist in Belgrade, Abramović began exploring the relationship between artist and audience. Since 1978 she has conducted a series of workshops with art students, using a series of simple exercises to increase physical and mental awareness. Over the course of her career, Abramović has continued to develop these workshops, expanding their scope to reach a general public, through the Marina Abramović Institute.

Photo:© Rahi Rezvani 2013

Marina Abramović: 512 Hours: Serpentine Gallery 11 June – 25 August 2014 – Free

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