{"id":151449,"date":"2013-03-23T19:39:49","date_gmt":"2013-03-23T17:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/espirited.com\/being-present-a-story-of-love-through-the-life-and-art-of-marina-abramovic\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T18:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T16:33:15","slug":"being-present-a-story-of-love-through-the-life-and-art-of-marina-abramovic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/espirited.com\/en\/being-present-a-story-of-love-through-the-life-and-art-of-marina-abramovic\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Present: A Story of Love Through the Life and Art of Marina Abramovi\u0107"},"content":{"rendered":"

I want to tell you the story of the life and art of a very interesting woman\u2014Marina Abramovi\u0107.
\nI did not know about her until one day my daughter sent me a link to a series of photographs arranged one beneath the other, telling me to read what was written below them. Here are the photographs:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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The text beneath them explained what it was about:<\/strong><\/p>\n

*\u201cMarina Abramovi\u0107 and Ulay begin a passionate love affair in the early 1970s, creating their art\u2014performance\u2014outside the van in which they live. When they realize that their relationship is approaching its end, they decide to walk the Great Wall of China, each starting from opposite ends, in order to meet in the middle for one final embrace, after which they will never see each other again.<\/p>\n

In 2010, Marina Abramovi\u0107 presents her performance* The Artist Is Present<\/strong><\/a> at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as part of a silent, minute-long encounter in which each visitor may sit across from her. Ulay arrives at the performance without her knowing. The photographs above show the exact moment of their meeting.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Almost hypnotized, I looked at these photographs several times. After that, I continued searching online for more information about the woman in the red dress\u2014about her life and her art.<\/p>\n

That is how I learned that Marina Abramovi\u0107<\/a> has been working in the field of performance for more than four decades, exploring themes such as the interaction between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the capacities of the mind.<\/p>\n

I personally felt what this was about when I watched video recordings of her performances. I was deeply moved and provoked by what I saw\u2014not only by the way she managed to draw the audience into the performance, but also because she made me a witness to so much pain, using the primary instrument of her art\u2014her own body.<\/p>\n

You can see her playing with a knife, stabbing it between her fingers\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRkRIwwzDjikEtrljkiyIO9ouNVHwQjhVdF4fla6wpAGaQ3CFTaVg\"<\/p>\n

\u2026or eating a huge onion, drenched in tears\u2026<\/p>\n

\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_7q_4U-MCsRE\/TNYaFHrqcvI\/AAAAAAAAAMs\/gqfKWNXpS-Y\/s640\/marina_abramovic.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\u2026or cutting into her abdomen with a razor blade, drawing a five-pointed star with her own blood\u2026<\/p>\n

\"images\"<\/p>\n

\u2026or lying on a bench with burning candles beneath her\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2026or, for six hours, allowing visitors to do whatever they wished with her body, provided with seventy-two different objects\u2014some for pleasure and some for harm: a rose, honey, a gun, a single bullet, a whip\u2026<\/p>\n

At the end of those six hours, during which she remained entirely passive, the aggression of the audience escalated to a degree that Abramovi\u0107 later said made her feel genuinely threatened, as it could have gone as far as murder\u2026<\/p>\n

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This is art saturated with so much pain!<\/strong>
Art in which pain signifies a boundary, and presence within it\u2014the crossing beyond that boundary.
Art that explores not only the limits of the body, but also the boundaries between people\u2014in love and in intimate relationships.<\/p>\n

As always, here too Abramovi\u0107 understands where these boundaries lie by stepping beyond what is perceived as \u201cnormal,\u201d and by transforming the experiences of her own body into art. During the period of her passionate relationship with Ulay\u2014lasting eleven years and ending with the ritual meeting-separation on the Great Wall of China\u2014Marina creates a series of joint performances with him, exploring the concept of the \u201ccommon body with two heads\u201d (the hermaphroditic body).<\/p>\n

The two of them embody this idea in their lives as well, dressing like twins, wearing identical clothes, and building a relationship of total trust. And on stage, you can see them in:<\/p>\n

\u201cBreathing In \/ Breathing Out\u201d<\/strong>\u2014breathing together (each inhaling the other\u2019s exhaled breath) for seventeen minutes, until they eventually collapse unconscious\u2026<\/p>\n

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.or remaining bound to one another for fifteen hours, with the sixteenth hour opened to visitors, alternating images of total union with opposing scenes of rage and screaming\u2026<\/p>\n

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…or slapping…<\/p>\n

\"https:\/\/www.momogalerie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/Abramovic-Marina-Ulay-%C2%ABLightDark%C2%BB-1977Picture13-3.png\"<\/p>\n

The passage from one state to the other\u2014from hermaphroditic fusion with the beloved to the painful tearing apart of this extreme closeness\u2014contains the danger of mutual injury\u2026 When we are so close to one another and so deeply interconnected, we resemble Marina and Ulay holding the bow and the arrow in their hands\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2026 and none of this would be real if it did not unfold against the backdrop of an endless inner vulnerability, one that only the nakedness of the human body can portray\u2026<\/p>\n

\"https:\/\/vibrisse.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/12\/marina_abramovic_ulay_1.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Living images, pain, provocation, the transcending of boundaries and the crossing beyond them\u2014these are the words that the art of Marina Abramovi\u0107 and Ulay evokes in me.<\/p>\n

Among the visitors of The Artist Is Present is not only Ulay, but also Lady Gaga. In an interview on this occasion, she does not hide her admiration for Marina Abramovi\u0107, repeating again and again: \u201cMarina, you are limitless!\u201d<\/p>\n

If all your life you have done only this\u2014to cross boundaries in order to see how far you can go\u2014at some point you truly go so far that you experience the limitless: the soul.<\/p>\n

That which does not die.<\/p>\n

\"skull<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Artist Is Present\u201d is not merely the essence of the \u201cAbramovi\u0107 Method,\u201d as her style of performance is called.
\nTo be present is the fundamental condition that transforms ordinary human suffering into a spiritual experience.<\/p>\n

Crossing boundaries and transcending them is, at its core, the capacity to experience human pain without fleeing from it\u2014by being present. Where most people stop, Marina continues\u2014even if this sometimes appears as madness to others.<\/p>\n

From intense pain during one of her performances, she loses consciousness, collapsing at the center of a burning five-pointed star; and when doctors bring her back to consciousness, she is furious that the endurance of her body has limits, and that therefore she cannot remain present at all times.<\/p>\n

If others call her mad, then for Abramovi\u0107 the truth is exactly the opposite\u2014that people are capable of far more than they believe.\u00a0Crossing boundaries is expansion. And this kind of expansion is love<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This publication belongs to the category \u201cLessons of Love.\u201d
\nIf it comes to you, check whether the time has come to expand your boundaries\u2014by being present.<\/p>\n

If there is pain in your life\u2014know that you can bear it!
\nThis brings expansion.
\nFor this, there is nothing else you need to do except<\/p>\n

to be present!<\/p>\n

If there is a longing for fusion with the beloved, know that sooner or later drama will come. Intense closeness gives rise to equally intense pain, rage, and anger.<\/p>\n

(Psychologists know this very well\u2014they know that in families where there are many conflicts, it is because there is too much closeness and almost no distance between the members. That is why these people quarrel often\u2014and fiercely. Such storms, at least temporarily, push them apart, so that there is a little more \u201cair\u201d between them\u2014to breathe freely!)<\/p>\n

Therefore\u2014wherever you may find yourself on the \u201cpendulum\u201d\u2014<\/p>\n

be present!<\/p>\n

In its essence, love is connectedness; it is a bond. It is a feeling of unity with the beloved. Physical union with another human being, however, is impossible\u2014it leads to \u201closs of consciousness, because the air we breathe together runs out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge for love embodied on Earth is how to remain connected to the other and at the same time be free. We do this through<\/p>\n

presence!<\/p>\n

The journey toward a love that breathes the air of freedom passes through the \u201cvalley of loneliness\u201d and is sometimes long. Very, very long\u2014it resembles the journey of Marina and Ulay toward one another along the Great Wall of China, when each of them walked 2,500 kilometers before meeting the other.<\/p>\n

And yet\u2014keep moving forward\u2014<\/p>\n

by being present!<\/p>\n

And if your heart is heavy with the pain that you will never see your beloved again (and to live through the separation you need not just 2,500 kilometers, but an entire 2,500 years), know that there is no such thing as a \u201cfinal goodbye\u201d or a \u201clast embrace.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

There is always a new meeting\u2014if not in this life, then in another; if not in an earthly body, then in \u201canother body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therefore, if separation hurts, do nothing else but<\/p>\n

be present!<\/p>\n

Because it is precisely presence that is \u201cthe purpose of our life\u201d<\/a>; it is the means through which we expand our boundaries in order to experience that which does not die.<\/p>\n

As Marina Abramovi\u0107 says, \u201cIn the end, you are always alone, regardless of what you do.\u201d<\/p>\n

And this is certainly true when we cross the threshold of our death. That is why it does not matter what happens in our lives (or in love); what matters is whether<\/p>\n

we are present!<\/p>\n

Through presence we enter<\/p>\n

eternity,<\/p>\n

resolving the seemingly irresolvable contradiction:<\/p>\n

to experience the longing for union with the beloved, which is love,<\/p>\n

and to be separate, independent, and free beings.<\/p>\n

Knowing that the limitless<\/p>\n

is love<\/p>\n

that does not die.<\/p>\n

Kameliya Hadzhiyska<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I want to tell you the story of the life and art of a very interesting woman\u2014Marina Abramovi\u0107. I did not know about her until one day my daughter sent me a link to a series of photographs arranged one beneath the other, telling me to read what was written below them. Here are the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":149436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[646],"tags":[655,649],"class_list":["post-151449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-intelligence","tag-the-lessons-of-love","tag-relationships"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t