About Marina Abramović's Rhythm 0
Women’s rights are facing increased legislation in the United States. This is 1 of 8 pivotal artworks about women’s autonomy and sexuality.
Cover photo: Rhythm 0 by Marina Abramović (1974). Courtesy of MOMA.
Even in this #MeToo era, women’s rights are still under attack. Activists are fighting all over the world, for the LGBT community, Black lives, and women’s control over their own bodies and sexuality. Just recently, 8 states have passed new anti-abortion bills. Here are 8 pivotal artworks about women’s autonomy and sexuality. This is one work of an eight-part series.
WARNING: The following article discusses topics of sex, murder, and rape.
Rhythm 0 — Marina Abramović (1974)
Marina Abramović (1946-Present) is a pioneering Serbian — at the time of birth, Yugoslavian — performance-artist known for daring performances that test her mental, emotional, and physical limits. She studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade before transitioning into performance art.
Abramović is best known for her 1974 groundbreaking performance Rhythm 0. The controversial performance-artist was initially criticized as a masochist and a narcissist so she conceived this daring performance. Abramović recalls, “I [wanted] to see what [the] public can do if I do nothing. I’ve been so criticized that I do too much, now I’m there for the public to do whatever they want, so this was a kind of hell.”
Abramović, then 28 years old, relinquished her autonomy for six hours and allowed visitors in a Naples gallery to treat her any way they pleased. A sign read: “There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired […] I am the object. During this period I take full responsibility.” In front of Abramović, on the table, sat a rose, perfume, wine, scissors, nails, chains, axe, sugar, yarn, and even a loaded pistol.
Rhythm 0 documentation, gelatin silver print with inset letterpress panel, by Marina Abramović (1946). Courtesy of the Guggenheim Museum. © 2018 Marina Abramović, courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery/(ARS), New York.
The evening began innocently. Someone handed Abramović the rose. Another visitor kissed her. As time went on, the public’s actions became more extreme. Someone cut her neck and drank her blood. Another person pointed the pistol at Abramović. Visitors removed her clothes. At the end, Abramović recalls, everyone fled and she found a gray hair.
Rhythm 0 is a fascinating work, investigating human nature through the loss of autonomy, and literal objectification of women. The performance is reminiscent of the famous — though largely discredited — 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, in which guards abused prisoners. In a chilling statement, Abramović explains, “The men didn’t rape me […] [because] it was all public and they were with their wives.”
A year later, Abramović moved to Amsterdam where she met Frank Uwe Laysiepen, Ulay, with whom she would make many collaborative works. The two separated in 1988, in a monumental performance that spanned the Great Wall of China. In 1997, Abramović was awarded the coveted Golden Lion for best artist at the Venice Biennale.
After an incredible fifty-year-long career, Marina Abramović is considered the grandmother of performance art. Now 70, the ever controversial Abramović has written a memoir, established the Marina Abramović Institute to support new performance artists, and she is currently exhibiting at the Venice Biennale; she is taking performance-art into the world of virtual reality — relinquishing her digital autonomy — with a plan to fight climate change.
