{"id":1403,"date":"2007-10-28T19:00:58","date_gmt":"2007-10-28T19:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/?p=1403"},"modified":"2018-01-25T14:54:52","modified_gmt":"2018-01-25T14:54:52","slug":"seven-easy-pieces-by-marina-abramovic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/2007\/10\/28\/seven-easy-pieces-by-marina-abramovic\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramovic"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

ngg_shortcode_0_placeholder<\/p>\n

SEVEN EASY PIECES BY MARINA ABRAMOVIC
\n<\/strong>Sunday 28 October 2007, at 7pm
\nLondon BFI Southbank Studio<\/strong><\/p>\n

Babette Mangolte, Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramovic, USA, 2007, 93 min
\n<\/strong>For one week in November 2005, Yugoslavian artist Marina Abramovic gave seven consecutive performances in the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, presenting her own works alongside interpretations of what are now regarded as seminal performance pieces by artists such as Joseph Beuys and Bruce Nauman. Actions that were once performed to select audiences in studios or small galleries were transformed into public spectacle. The artist\u2019s own \u2018Lips of Thomas\u2019 is an intense ritual that repeatedly subjects the body to physical pain, being clearly related to her country\u2019s war torn past. Other uncompromising works address sexuality (Vito Acconci, \u2018Seedbed\u2019), confrontation (Valie Export, \u2018Genital Panic\u2019) and suffering (Gina Pane, \u2018The Conditioning\u2019). The performances, executed with extraordinary discipline and composure, test the thresholds of endurance and determination. Babette Mangolte\u2019s mesmerising document of this event condenses the entire series into 90 minutes. The camera, cool and detached, rarely strays from the artists\u2019 body, detailing mental and physical tension with the sharp clarity of high definition video. Live art, best experienced in the moment, has rarely been captured with such atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Also Screening: <\/em>Tuesday 30 October 2007, at 7:30pm, BFI Southbank Studio<\/em><\/p>\nPROGRAMME NOTES<\/a>

<\/p>\n

SEVEN EASY PIECES BY MARINA ABRAMOVI?
\n<\/strong>Sunday 28 October 2007, at 7pm
\nLondon BFI Southbank Studio<\/p>\n

SEVEN EASY PIECES BY MARINA ABRAMOVI?
\nBabette Mangolte, USA, 2007, <\/strong>HD video, colour, sound, <\/strong>93 min
\n<\/strong>Bruce Nauman, Body Pressure, 1974
\nVito Acconci, Seedbed, 1972
\nValie Export, Action Pants: Genital Panic, 1969
\nGina Pane, The Conditioning, the first action of Self-Portrait(s), 1973
\nJoseph Beuys, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, 1965
\nMarina Abramovi?, Lips of Thomas, 1975
\nMarina Abramovi?, Entering the Other Side, 2005<\/em><\/p>\n

In Seven Easy Pieces <\/em>Abramovi?<\/em> re-enacted seminal performance works from the 1960s and 70s by Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, Valie Export, Gina Pane, Joseph Beuys and herself, interpreting them as one would a musical score. The film is a reflection on performance art and body art outlining physical fragility, versatility, tenacity and unlimited endurance as seen in the work of Marina Abramovi?. The film of Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramovi?<\/em> is about the performing body and how it affects viscerally the people who confront it, look at it and participate in the transcendental experience that is its primary effect. The ceremonial and meditative are the common responses to the week-long series of performances that took place in November 2005 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. From an art event to a social phenomenon, the seven performances became the talk of the town because they created among the visitors a sense of sublimation, like prayer. The film attempts to reveal the mechanisms of this transcendental experience by simply showing the performer\u2019s body living the events inscribed in each piece with details that outline the body\u2019s fragility, versatility, tenacity and unlimited endurance. The fascination comes from the revelation of the physical transformation of Marina Abramovi?\u2019s exposed body due to the rigorous discipline of being there on display each day for seven hours without any restrictive boundaries. The relentless progress of time is revealed each day by the acoustics of the building with its waves of crowds that roll like an ocean and marvel at the performer\u2019s steadfastness with respectful silence. That the performer\u2019s required discipline had to be so different from one piece to the next is one of the mysteries. How the attentive audience fed into the art and Marina\u2019s aesthetics is what is explored. It is as if a monastic urge attracted the mystical among us viewers who were there to participate. And the film, by focusing on Marina\u2019s minute changes and strain during the long seven hours of each piece, explores in a systematic way a body without limit and increases the awareness of how participatory body art is. The film follows the linearity inscribed in the weeklong event, from body pressure, audience participation and confrontation in the first three pieces to the ceremonial in the last four pieces as mapped out by Marina Abramovi?. It is only after the fact that the film viewer will realize how much the project\u2019s concept enlightens us on aesthetics that place physical experience over reason, process over iconography and testify to the power of audience participation over passive spectatorship. (Babette Mangolte)
\nwww.babettemangolte.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Back to top<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alina Rudnitskaya\u2019s humanistic approach to documentary filmmaking often brings out the humour in her chosen subjects. As an introduction to her work, this programme depicts three diverse groups of contemporary Russian women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-1403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-london-film-festival-2007","tag-london-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}