Marina Abramović, performance artist extraordinaire, is not sitting out the festivities at Miami Art Week. In collaboration with Spanish clothing brand Massimo Dutti, the artist is presenting “A Tribute to the Nomadic Spirit,” an exhibition at the city’s Faena Art Project Room, to coincide with the release of her coffee table book, Nomadic Journey and Spirit of Places.
As hinted at by the exhibition and book titles, the show is offering a rare glimpse into Abramović’s artistic process, exploring the creative journeys she’s undertaken through four decades’ worth of drawings, poetry, photographs, and reflections.
Installation view of “Marina Abramović & Massimo Dutti: A Tribute to the Nomadic Spirit” at Faena Art Project Room. Photo courtesy of Massimo Dutti.
Born in the Serbian province of Belgrade in 1946, Abramović first became interested in performance art while she was studying at Belgrade’s Academy of Fine Arts, recognizing the largely unexplored medium as a means to communicate her political views. One of Abramović’s most well-known pieces of performance art, 1997’s , saw her try and fail to clean some 1,500 cow bones—an obvious metaphor for how the violence of historical events can never be washed off.
Marina Abramović’s sketches on hotel stationery. Photo courtesy of Massimo Dutti.
Her other performance work is just as provocative. (1977) saw her and her professional and romantic partner, German visual artist Ulay, spend 17 hours with their hair tied together, symbolizing their connection. Most famously, for (2010), Abramović spent a total of 750 hours seated in silence, inviting visitors to engage her in uncomfortably intimate staring contests.
Marina Abramović’s sketches on hotel stationery. Photo courtesy of Massimo Dutti.
In “Nomadic Journey” are prints of the artist’s original drawings and doodles—some of them casual and spontaneous, others unveiling a creative mind at work. Some are scribbled on hotel stationery, capturing the roads she’s taken over the decades: a piece of Venice’s Bauer Hotel note paper is traced with outlines of her hand and foot, while another doodle under the letterhead of Brazil’s Fasano Hotel offers the cryptic phrase: “…if you could see.”
Marina Abramović’s sketches on hotel stationery. Photo courtesy of Massimo Dutti.
Even when residing in temporary residences, Abramović apparently found space for reflection and inspiration.
“I believe we humans need to keep moving forward, and my own life was purely nomadic,” Abramović noted of these travel journals. “My home was everywhere I went because my home was my own body.”
Cover of Nomadic Journey and Spirit of Places. Photo courtesy of Massimo Dutti.
The accompanying book, Nomadic Journey and Spirit of Places, similarly chronicles her nomadic lifestyle, which has taken her from Serbia to the United States. It also explores her evolution as an artist through a self-curated selection of her work, combining poetry, notebooks, and personal observations. It will be available for purchase in select Massimo Dutti stores.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
