Marina Abramovic: The House With the Ocean View [Hardcover]

Marina Abramovic (Author), Sean Kelly (Author), Thomas McEvilley (Author), Chrissie Iles (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2, 2004

For 12 days in November 2002, Marina Abramovic lived on three open platforms in the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York. She did not eat or speak, nor did have any privacy: the rooms were open and spectators were even invited to observe the artist through a high-powered telescope. She had no escape: the ladders leaning against bedroom, sitting room and bathroom had rungs made of large butcher knives. Throughout her 30-year career, Abramovic has used her body as her primary material, pushing it to extremes of altered consciousness, often putting herself in great physical peril. Her concern with creating works that ritualize the simple actions of everyday life like lying, sitting, dreaming and thinking focuses, in effect, on the manifestation of a unique mental state. In one early solo performances, the artist announced that she would be a passive object for six hours and laid out 72 items spectators could use on her, including a loaded gun. A fight broke out when someone tried to use it. Beginning in the late 70s, she and her then partner Ulay collaborated on now classic performances in which they crawled on their stomachs with a python that hadn't eaten in two weeks; collided with each other, naked, at top speed; sat motionless for seven hours at either end of a long table, trying not even to blink; and, most famously and difficultly, crossed the Great Wall of China, starting at opposite ends and walking until they met in the middle. Abramovic thought The House With the Ocean View would be most like walking this last piece, so she mounted the platforms at Sean Kelly Gallery clad in the old hiking boots she wore in China. This volume presents documentation of The House With the Ocean View, Abramovic's most important performance work to date, alongside essays by the artist, her gallerist Sean Kelly, art historian Thomas McEvilley, curator Chrissie Iles, and others. Published in conjunction with the Sean Kelly Gallery

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Charta (March 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8881584360
• ISBN-13: 978-8881584369
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,013,796 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Capturing Performance Art, November 15, 2011

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Marina Abramovic: The House With the Ocean View (Hardcover)

Marina Abramovic.is an internationally celebrated artist whose genre is confrontational performances where she and her collaborators - nude - would endure excruciatingly long hours of public exposure. Whether standing, sitting or lying down, they wouldn't be allowed to move during the prolonged performances, remaining motionless to the point sometimes of fainting. Some people can appreciate this art form: other people mislabel it porn. What this book adds to the growing library of book on Marina Abramovic is an extended performance in November 2002 when for twelve days the artist lived on three platforms set up in the gallery. For these twelve days she did not speak or eat, but went about whatever came to her mind as though no one was present. The concept was to create a sense of ritual for the everyday routines we all share - sleeping, using the bathroom, thinking, meditating.

Even the camera work used to capture this 12 day experience seems to be in synch with Abramovic's concept of observing the mundane. This very well designed book, with thoughtful and interesting essays by Thomas McEvilley (her most frequent commentator), gallery director Sean Kelly and Chrissie Iles, documents what many curators and critics - and audiences alike - as Abramovic's most significant performance work to date. Would that they could have been present at MOCA's gala where Abramovic created table centerpieces form live models' heads and nude men and women coupling with skeletons. The artist knows how to draw attention - and how to make us re-think beauty! Grady Harp, November 11