The Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice has tapped Marina Abramović (b. 1946) for a solo show timed to next year’s Venice Biennale—and her 80th birthday. The Serbian performance artist will be the first living woman to have her own exhibition at the storied institution.
“I was 14 when my mother first brought me to the Venice Biennale. We traveled by train from Belgrade and as I stepped out of the station and saw Venice for the first time, I began to cry. It was so incredibly beautiful—unlike anything I had ever seen,” Abramović said in a statement. “Since then, returning to Venice has become a tradition, and after receiving the Golden Lion in 1997, the city has always held a special place in my life.”
Abramović was the first woman artist to receive the biennale’s Golden Lion. She is closely involved in the organization of the show, “Marina Abramović: Transforming Energy,” which originally appeared at the Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai, in collaboration with the Marina Abramović Institute. It introduced the artist’s interactive carved mineral sculptures, or “Transitory Objects,” which she believes can positively affect visitors’ minds and bodies.
But at the Accademia, those works, as well as earlier ones, will be interspersed throughout the museum’s permanent collection, putting Abramović’s work in conversation with Renaissance masterpieces. It’s the first time that the museum has let a contemporary art show extend beyond its dedicated temporary exhibition galleries.
Marina Abramović, Shoes for Departure, (1991/2017). Photo: by Heini Schneebeli, courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018, ©Marina Abramović.
A Performance Artist’s New Age Sculptures
“This is a transformative moment—not only for the Gallerie dell’Accademia, but for the role museums can play in the future,” Shai Baitel, MAM’s artistic director, said in a statement. “Placing Marina Abramović’s work within the permanent collection brings past and present into direct dialogue, and invites audiences to inhabit that space with their own bodies.”
The “Transitory Objects” are made from natural materials like quartz and amethyst that were historically used in Venetian mosaics, which ties into the city’s long history as a hub for culture and the trade of rare materials. Abramović invites audiences to activate beds and structures embedded with these crystals by lying or sitting on them.
Marina Abramović, (2012). Photo: by Fabrizio Vatieri, courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery.
“It’s not that I’m going to be able to perform when I’m 80, 90, 100, whatever,” Abramović said during a virtual press event announcing the Shanghai show. “I have to find the system in which my mission and my legacy can go on. And this is exactly [what I do] with the ‘Transitory Objects.’”
She believes that spending long periods of time training to use these minerals can have remarkable effects, such as imparting the ability to practice telepathy, which Abramović has said anyone can learn in just four years.
“Marina Abramović: Transforming Energy” at the Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai. Photo by Yu Jieyu, courtesy of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.
Performance Art in Dialogue With Art History
The exhibition also spotlights Abramović’s , a 1983 photograph of her and former partner Ulay (1943–2020) posed as the Virgin Mary holding the body of Jesus after the Crucifixion.
It will be displayed alongside Titian’s (1485–1576) last painting, the (c. 1575–76), completed by Palma Giovane (ca. 1548–1628) and part of the Accademia’s collection, in a celebration of the 450 anniversary of the canvas.
Titian, (1575–76). The artist’s final work, believed to have been completed by Palma Giovane. Collection of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.
Documentation of other historic Abramović works will be on view, such as her six-hour endurance performance piece (1974), in which audience members were invited to choose from 72 objects on a table, and do with them whatever they wanted to the artist.
Of special note is her Golden Lion-winning (1997), a memorial to the Bosnian War in which the artist sat in the hot Venetian sun, scrubbing the blood off a festering pile of 1,500 freshly butchered cow bones.
Marina Abramović, Balkan Baroque, June 1997. Performance at XLVIII Venice Biennale; 4 days. Photo: courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives, ©Marina Abramović
Then there are Abramović’s famed collaborations with Ulay. In (1977), the two stood naked at the entrance to the exhibition, forcing visitors to squeeze past their genitals to pass through the narrow doorway. In (1977), the pair repeatedly slapped each other in the face.
The Accademia’s contemporary and Modern art shows have become a highly anticipated part of the Venice Biennale agenda. During the 2024 edition, the museum hosted the nation’s largest ever show of the great Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning (1904–1997). And for the 2022 biennale, Anish Kapoor (b. 1954) debuted his highly anticipated, exclusive Vantablack works there. Before that, the biennale spotlight went to Mario Merz (1925–2003), Philip Guston (1913–1980), and Georg Baselitz (b. 1938).
Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images.
“The Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia’s openness to contemporary art, in conjunction with the International Art Biennale, has become a highly anticipated and established event,” Giulio Manieri Elia, the Accademia’s director, said in a statement. “We are particularly honored and delighted that it is now the turn of Marina Abramović.”
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
