The pioneer of extreme performance art is exploring the possibilities of happiness as, at 76, she becomes the first woman to have a full Royal Academy retrospective
, in which a naked figure is stationed high on the wall in crucifix-pose, seated on a bike saddle. Abramović performed these pieces for hours on end, but union restrictions here require a rotation of performers., three women will occupy separate open-sided platforms on the gallery wall, 24 hours a day for 12 days, observing and being observed by the public, without talking, drinking only water.
With her parents engaged in Communist party duties, Abramović was raised mostly by her grandmother, who took her to mass every day. “I never played with dolls; I only played with shadows,” she says. “I was a very strange kid.” Observing church rituals, she came to believe that if she could only drink all the water from the font she would become holy. “So I stood on a little chair and drank the water. I got terribly sick for days.
Abramović was not deterred by that first near-death experience. Her Royal Academy show will also include the apparatus for her infamous piece Rhythm 0, in which the artist laid out 72 objects on a table – “gun, bullet, blue paint, comb, whip, lipstick, perfume, matches, feather, chains…” – along with the instruction that the audience could use them on her as they desired. “I am the object. During this period I take full responsibility.
; it collects all the notes and drawings she has made on hotel stationery over half a century of travels. “There were times in India when toilet paper was more expensive than my hotel room, with rats and cockroaches. And then later on it was five-star hotels.” A turning point for her in that particular journey was her contribution to the Venice Biennale of 1997.was a response to the horrors of war and ethnic conflict in her native Yugoslavia.
She finds it “still strange” to be a cover story in a fashion magazine. “When I was young I was so ugly, I had a big nose and funny hair and lots of pimples. I was incredibly shy. But I don’t have those fears now.”
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