This book was pretty well written by James Kaplan. If it wasn't for his writing, I would have given up reading it. On that note...

What is evident from the beginning, is that Miss Abramovic is very much privileged in life. When she's describing her youth, growing up as a child of rich parents in a dirt poor communist country, she mentions multiple times that she never got the presents that she wanted. She tells us that she got all the books that she wanted to read, theater tickets, painting supplies, etc. But her birthday gifts never met up to her expectations.

Furthermore, this woman has no empathy.
"So I got a job as a mail lady. I was excited about my new job, but after a few exhausting days of walking around the city, often lost and not speaking the language very well, I decided to only deliver the envelopes with nice handwritten addresses and throw out everything else—especially the bills." That's not cool. But it goes further.
In art school Abramovic painted car crashes and actually went to the crash scenes, just for the sake of art.
She witnessed her father in law die:
"It was the first time I had ever seen someone die, and it was one of the most beautiful deaths I have ever seen. That moment was so peaceful and so special - it was as though he felt comfortable enough to die in my presence. I was so mesmerized by this moment that for a long, long time I didn't move from the table - I just wanted to give him this time. Then I stood up very slowly, went to the kitchen, and said, "I think your father is dying." Neša's mother rushed in, saw that her husband was gone, and went nuts. She kept screaming at me: "How could you not call me, why didn't you call me?" She was an impossible woman anyway."
In the 90's she wanted to make a video installation showing opera pieces combined with footage of real human deaths that she would have been filming in the mines of Brazil.

When Abramovic tells us the story of her early months with Ulay, we learn that she was married with someone else at that time. She lived with Ulay for several months before telling her husband (after being discovered). No sense of remorse, no guilt. The only person Marina cares about is Marina. However, when Ulay cheated on her some years later, she couldn't cope. And after breaking up with Ulay, Marina starts having intimate relations with married man. In secret. The mirror that this artist wants to show to her audience is one she has never looked into herself.

Where Marina's life starts with art, and giving herself away for the sake of art, in the second half of her life as an artist the opposite happens. Art becomes a way to serve Marina. You can see the change when she has to sacrifice something of importance after a three month Buddhist retreat, she decides to give up her sleeping bag, and nothing more. After the breakup with Ulay, Marina becomes obsessed with fame, fashion and money. BYE BYE PURITY. All these beautiful transcendental experiences have transformed Abramovic into a New Age Guru. Her Method reminds me of OSHO dynamic mediations.
As a performance artist, she ran out of ideas. It's actually Klaus Biesenbach who came up with the concept of "The artist is present", the only interesting piece of performance art Abramovic has made after her collaboration with Ulay. She also sold one of her performances with Ulay to be used in a commercial for Adidas (for $200,000), without consulting Ulay first, and without paying him his share. This is not mentioned in her memoir, though.

At the end of the book, Abramovic decides to invest in "immaterial art". She wants to make a profit from literally nothing and call it Art. I am very open to conceptual art, but this idea is not radical, it's an empty shell, a trap. After the publication of the book, Abramovic has asked Microsoft to create a permanent presence of herself in a virtual space. This shows to me that her art has become the opposite of what she wanted to create. She has made herself into the idol to be worshipped after her death.

Walk Through Walls - Likewise Book Reviews

1 Reviews