Marina Abramovic at the Royal Academy

Spoiler alert:

A couple of weeks ago I visited Abramovic’s exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. It was my first time seeing and exploring her work in depth, and it was a deep intake because I found the exhibition a bit intense! (2h walking around the rooms…). But that’s her work and herself, a deep experience where your body and mind are fully working.

There was “resting” rooms as I called them where the experience was a bit more quieter in between moments but this made the experience in those rooms less interesting? For example, “The Great Wall Walk”, when Ulay and Marina broke up (iconic moment) was in a small screen surrounded by big artworks from China...Her latest artwork, placed on the last room and right at the exit, had a sense of forgotten after all the experience. Perhaps because my brain was already tired.

We caught the live performances and that is what brings the exhibition to life! If you went and didn’t caught them on time, I recommend you to do so because the whole experience changes. I definitely missed the impact of “Balkan Baroque” when it was alive.

Her work is to get to know communities where they perform, not sure with all this intake of many people and with multiple performances at the same time will help but definitely tested the societal norms and the relationship between artist and audience. Overall, a good, different, extensive, deep, and emotionally intense experience. Not only you will know Marina’s work but Marina herself. You can’t separate the work from the artist because, in this case, they are just one. Although what makes sense of her art is her as the main figure.

You can like the work more or less, but it is definitely an experience and emotional journey.