Rhythm 0
Rhythm 0 was a six-hour long endurance art performance by the Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović performed in Naples in 1974.[1] The work involved Abramović standing still while the audience was invited to do to her whatever they wished, using one of 72 objects she had placed on a table. These included a rose, feather, perfume, honey, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, a gun, and a bullet.[2][3]
There were no separate stages. Abramović and the visitors stood in the same space, making it clear that the latter were part of the work.[4] The purpose of the piece, she said, was to find out how far the public would go: "What is the public about and what are they going to do in this kind of situation?"[5]
Performance
[edit]Her instructions were
Instructions:
There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired.
Performance.
I am the object...
During this period I take full responsibility.
Duration: 6 hours (8 pm – 2 am).[6]
Abramović said the work "pushed her body to the limits".[5] Visitors were gentle to begin with, offering her a rose or a kiss.[2] Art critic Thomas McEvilley, who was present, wrote:
"It began tamely. Someone turned her around. Someone thrust her arms into the air. Someone touched her somewhat intimately. The Neapolitan night began to heat up. In the third hour all her clothes were cut from her with razor sharp blades. In the fourth hour the same blades began to explore her skin. Her throat was slashed so someone could suck her blood. Various minor sexual assaults were carried out on her body. She was so committed to the piece that she would not have resisted rape or murder. Faced with her abdication of will, with its implied collapse of human psychology, a protective group began to define itself in the audience. When a loaded gun was thrust to Marina's head and her own finger was being worked around the trigger, a fight broke out between the audience factions."[7]
As Abramović described it later: "What I learned was that ... if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you ... I felt really violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation."[8][9]
Marina explores the physical and mental limits of her being. In this she is withstanding pain, exhaustion, and danger in her exploration of an emotional and spiritual transformation. This performance was inspired by the contradictions of her childhood: both parents were high-ranking officials in the socialist government, while her grandmother, with whom she had lived, was devoutly Serbian Orthodox. She credits her mother’s strict upbringing for her outlook on life. [1]
Group Splits Into Two
[edit]During the performance, the group of audience split into two, one sought to harm Abramovic while the other tried to protect her(i.e. Wiping her tears). After six hours of her standing still, one of the participants in the protective side insisted the performance be stopped, seeing that others were being increasingly violent. After the performance stopped, Abramovic started walking toward the audience in which they responded by walking away from her, somewhat fearfully. Without the threat of accountability, people can show human nature and how far a performance can go. Abramovic allows the audience to judge and guide their moral compass, whether to use an object against her for care or harm.
Subject and Object
[edit]The performance started out tame, at first people were hesitant to use the dangerous objects presented, yet as some time went on the audience started to use the objects to see how Abramovic would react or resist the pain being inflicted onto her. “The fear in the atmosphere was present as much as the audience’s increased willingness to use the objects against Abramovic knowing that they would get no consequences for their actions”(Tonchon, 2021). Within three hours her clothes had been completely cut off, some people used the weapons to cut off her skin and drink blood out of her neck. Some participants touched her inappropriately after her clothes had been cut off. One of the participants pointed a gun at Abramovic’s head with bullets in and held her fingers on the trigger waiting to see if she would respond.
General Interpretation
[edit]In Rhythm 0, there is a concept of “care” which generally encompasses a wide range of actions and behaviors, including emotional physical support, maintaining protection of someone or something, and attention to the needs of others and oneself. The “care” in the piece is closely tied to things such as the loss of identity, the violation of personal space, and the impact of human actions on others. Rhythm 0 is an exploration of the human condition rather than human connection although some showed genuine concern for Abramovic which is a service of care for both her and the participants themselves.
Feminist Reading
[edit]By physically presenting her own attributes, Abramovic reveals the essence of the gaze in visual art as an unconscious violence that contains masculine desire. What is contained in this piece seems to often give an impression of a performance that is categorized completely as feminist art. The physical vulnerability being nudity is not necessarily an index for the performer’s status as a woman but rather it functions as a key metaphor for the works. Nudity, having the implications of vulnerability and danger, was stationed by Abramovic to unmask the audience’s ethics.
Reception
[edit]Rhythm 0 ranked ninth among the all-time best performance art pieces in a 2013 list by Complex magazine.[10]
See also
[edit]- Endurance art
- The Death of The Artist
- Empathy and Prostitution
- Stanford prison experiment
- Milgram experiment
- Cut Piece 1964
References
[edit]- ^ Abramović, Marina; Thompson, Chris; Weslien, Katarina (2006). "Pure Raw: Performance, Pedagogy, and (Re)presentation". PAJ. 28 (1): 29–50. JSTOR 4139995.
- ^ a b "Marina Abramović on Rhythm 0 (1974)", Marina Abramović Institute, 2014, c. 01:00 mins.
- ^ "Marina Abramović. Rhythm 0. 1974", Museum of Modern Art.
- ^ Frazer Ward, No Innocent Bystanders: Performance Art and Audience, University Press of New England, 2012, p. 125.
- ^ a b Abramović 2014, c. 00:00 mins.
- ^ Ward 2012, p. 119.
- ^ Ward 2012, p. 120.
- ^ Daneri, 29; and 30
- ^ Abramović 2014, c. 01:45 mins.
- ^ Eisinger, Dale (April 9, 2013). "The 25 Best Performance Art Pieces of All Time". Complex. Retrieved July 19, 2017.