Marina Abramovic or the artist and his story

The artist Marina Abramovic and her place in the art world

Marina Abramović is a Serbian citizen, but her life and work as an artist already occurred in the rest of the world at the rest of the world when Serbia was still part of Yugoslavia. Abramović became known as performance artist and action artist , made installations and concept art .

The "Grandmother of Performance Art" (saying of a former partner, whom the artist herself should not appreciate) is famous like no other artist, and not only because her illustrious career in the 1960s began and Marina Abramović kept thinking and imagining new art again and again.

She has influenced the performance art comprehensively and remarkably, as an artist and as a mentor of younger artists; Her extraordinary and demanding way of art of art influences her own generation as well as artists of the following generations. Over the past five decades, Abramović's art has undergone a number of changes that the further development of the artist and the person against mirrors n.

Marina Abramović is one of the most controversial artists of our time because there are few people who do not touch and touch them with their performances.

mirrors after exhibition and sales sequences The ambivalent relationship between international art criticism to the artist Abramović: In 2005 she was listed in 36th place on the world's most successful artist in 2006, in 2007 she rose to number 31, in 2009, in 2010, in 2012 to 33, in 2012. In 35th place, 2013 at 37, 2014 at 31, at the moment it fell back to 35th place (see artfacts.net/en/artists/top100.html ).

A zig-zig-zig-line, which is falling quickly and often from the upward trend, not even half a dozen of the world artists subscribed to the first 50 places in the world's best list of art show similar mobility in their art and their evaluation. Here follows the story behind it, which is also the history of a society:

Marina Abramovic and the Yugoslav history

Marina Abramović was born on November 30, 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. A post-war child who grew up in the socialist Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia under the rule of the "fatherly dictator" Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980).

And yet a post -war child, whose path to the artist and expression as an artist was also decisively and shaken by the past wars of her country:

Abramović's parents Vojo Abramović and Danica Abramović were both politically highly active and were shaped by their experiences in such a way that the childhood of her daughter Marina was designed by the memories of the elementary experienced.

Father Vojo Abramović was born on September 29, 1914 as the son of poor parents in Cetinje, Montenegro. He grew up in Pec in Kosovo, went to the army and initially brought it to the general. Her mother Danica Abramović was born in 1921 as the daughter of Varnava Rosić, 1930 to 1937 Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

However, she also became major in the army, both parents are said to have rejected the Christian Orthodox religion in which they were born, does not sound like a warm relationship to the grandfather of the mother's side.

Both parents, the Montenegriner and the Serb, joined Tito's Volksbeskurungs Army. From 1941 to 1945 they are said to have been in a guerrilla unit against the Croatian fascist Ustascha, which committed genocide of Jews, Roma and Serbs in high six-digit numbers.

Traumatic experiences that Marina Abramović felt in her childhood and adolescence and who are an eternal topic when it comes to the artist Marina Abramović .

Without a look at the history of Serbia/Yugoslavia, access to the artist Marina Abramović is therefore hardly possible:

The Balkans: An eternal fight

Today's Republic of Serbia in the center of the Balkan Peninsula has been a state for around the year 600, up to around 1000 among tribal leaders named Županes, as so often with states with many neighbors, the dusting started soon after the state was founded: Serbia was devastated by the Hungary around 1000 and came under Byzantine rule until the middle of the 12th century.

At the end of the 12th century, Serbia rose among the Nemanjids to the regional great power, under the most powerful Serbian ruler Zar Dušan (1331–1355), the Serbian Empire achieved the greatest political influence and the greatest extent, in 1345 Dušan became "Tsar of Serbs and Rhomäer" .

His successors had to defend themselves against the Turks (Ottomans) at the end of the 14th century, who wanted to incorporate the last Christian Reich in Southeast Europe to the Byzantine Empire. In the so -called Amselfeld battle (1389, for the Serbs a national myth), the Serbian princes were weakened in such a way that they had to recognize the sovereignty of the Ottoman sultaneous.

In 1459 Serbia was finally conquered, since then it has been fighting for independence, but was only able to free himself from the Ottoman rule in 1804 in the first Serbian uprising.

In 1813, Serbia was again conquered by the Ottomans, partly autonomous principality through the second Serbian uprising (1815 - 1817), freed from the last Ottoman regiments by prince Mihailo Obrenović in 1867.

He ceremoniously consecrated Belgrade to the Free Serbian capital, at the Berlin Congress in 1878, the major European powers and Turkey recognized independence from Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, in 1882 the Principality of Serbia was declared the kingdom. King Milan Obrenović explained the war in 1885 and was defeated, only by intervening Austria-Hungary could the Serbian kingdom been preserved in the peace of Bucharest from 1886.

In 1912 Montenegro explained to the Ottoman Empire (1st Balkan) war, Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks, and the Ottoman Empire almost lost the entire European property (London Treaty 1913). Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece now argued for the division of Macedonia, with the attack by Bulgaria in Serbia, the second Balkan clan began on July 29, 1913, here Serbia, Greece, Romania and the Ottoman Empire fought against Bulgaria, which was already lost in August 1913, was divided.

In the First World War, Serbia was well there: bad mood and the worse mood in Europe had been observed for quite a while, but the immediate war trigger was the attack by Sarajevo on the Austrian heir to the throne (Franz Ferdinand von Austriaeste). This assassination attempted the "Black Hand" , a secret covenant with some influence in the Serbian government, which represented "Großerbian ideologies" (Brushing Austria-Hungary, a state for all South Slavic peoples, e.g.).

When secret bundle and ideologies, terms such as "breakdown" and "one for everyone" are in the game, all-encompassing disaster usually follow, as here: The tense situation accumulated according to the attack that Austria-Hungary Serbia put an "unacceptable ultimatum" instead of reducing mutual distrust and clarifying.

As in every war (and every assertion through financial fraud), it was foreseeable that the "decision-makers" would only be a few among the 17 million dead (the wealthy citizens) that this war caused.

If a few large-man potatoes “want to play war”, every pups are a humiliation, and unacceptable at the “almost unacceptable ultimatum” were the points 5 and 6 of the ultimatum, in which Austria-Hungary called for the participation of the assassination.

Belgrade saw this as a "violation of the constitution and the Serbian criminal law" (today mostly of course, maybe we have learned something) - the Serbian government nevertheless accepted all demands with a restriction.

But no matter, from July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary was with Serbia, and soon there was war across Europe, Serbia lost well over 90 percent of his soldiers, but was considered an ally of the Entente (UK + France + Russia, which was one of the martial parties.

Serbian Prince Regent Alexander I. Karađorđević now founded the Kingdom of Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes, which Yugoslavia (= South Slavia) . Alexander I soon fell victim to an assassination attempt (together with the French Foreign Minister) of a newly strengthened national movement, among the successors of the Karađorđević family, a "authoritarian royal dictatorship", which was largely based on the Serbian part of the population (Balkan campaign April 1941) had to flee into exile.

Yugoslavia- which actually wanted to remain neutral- was fully occupied within a few days and divided by the winners: Bosnia, Herzegovina, Syrmia, Banovina Zeta (almost equally Montenegro + Kosovo) was occupied by Italian Nazis, Batschka fell on Hungary, Banat + "Rumpferbia" was occupied by German Nazis, South and Central Serbia occupied later by Bulgaria.

The Communist Party Yugoslavia (KPJ) and King Peter II in exile organized the anti -fascist resistance, with the result of a popular uprising in Serbia (July 1941, later also in Montenegro, Bosnia and Croatia); In addition to resistance to the Wehrmacht, the partisan movement controlled by the KPJ began but also the open fight against the Yugoslav monarchy.

In the fall of 1941, the Serbian partisans were able to call the liberated republic of Užice (mountain region) and last for 73 days against the Wehrmacht, were then expelled and relocated in Serbia, the resistance to the fascist occupiers was primarily maintained by the Chetniks (popular, mostly anti -commodity -unable Serbian militias) with which the communist Serbian Partisans had some friction points and who also worked against the Tito partisans in Bosnia and Croatia.

These Tito-Partisans were the germ cells of Yugoslavian People's Liberation Arms , who in June 1941 by the Central Committee of the KPJ under Tito's leadership, in which Abramović's parents were involved. This communistically dominated folk exemption army had proclaimed the general uprising in July 1941, Tito had set up partisan units after Serbia was conquered by the occupying powers at the end of 1941, the partisans had fled to Eastern Bosnia under Tito.

There, the initially Serbian-Montenegrin uprising was transformed into a multinational folk exemption movement, 22,500 to 600-strong combat units were added until the end of the year, in November 1942 the associations were called "Volksfreisungsgrum" .

This folk exemption army was now fought for the liberation of fascism and the restoration of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Tito and in the shadow of the Allied air raids, in the new form of a state of socialist (Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia).

For the partisans a murderous struggle, initially with poor equipment and against hardly identifiable opponents, this changed in the course of the struggle due to captured weapons, gain from overwhelming and finally by supporting the Allies, the equipment and weapons from the air.

The partisans have freed Yugoslavia under great losses, German retaliation measures on the civilian population, the genocide of the fascist movement Ustascha and the rest of the fighting demanded a total of at least 500,000 victims.

In 1944, a new Yugoslav government was formed with the mediation of Great Britain, in which the communists had the upper hand under Tito, the People's Liberation Army opened in the Yugoslav People's Army.

The decisive characteristics of an artist?

Marina Abramović's parents, guerrilla fighter against fascist murderers, had survived physically, but not necessarily mentally without prejudice.

The partisans won, General Vojo Abramović was worshiped as the hero of the resistance, but both parents were strongly shaped by the terrible suffering they had experienced during this time.

Abramović's mother Danica Abramović had studied medicine before the war and now found that after her terrible experiences he was impossible to continue this study. Instead, she opted for the visual art, studied art history and became director of the Museum of Art and Revolution Yugoslavia in Belgrade in the 1960s .

After the end of the war, Vojo Abramović "went to the Yugoslav People's Army with the People's Liberation Army" and worked for the Yugoslav Air Force.

When it comes to the artist Marina Abramović, the influence of her upbringing is rarely not addressed in a consistently negative way; Reason for a slightly different view of things:

Despite all the trauma: a strong family

When Marina Abramović's upbringing is an issue in the media (Marina Abramović's upbringing has been a topic in the media for many years and very often), many negative effects are usually addressed that are said to have shaped Abramović and from which she suffered her whole life.

What the parents are said to have done to her in the course of her own trauma coping in the upbringing, filled book volumes of media reports (and was an occasion for the article "The artist as a public person in the media: Example Marina Abramović").

However, it is never asked for positive childhood memories, not to what extent the artist is in the course of the development of her "Abramović method" (a holistic body and mind demanding and united exercise program that takes up many of the ideas of modern medicine, which has just opened the tunnel view of traditional school medicine) with some of the seemingly negative influence from her early development.

Instead of collecting as many unpleasant details as possible and rows together, the childhood of the artist can also be tackled on the basis of the traditional facts and questions:

Is that really like that?

Was the upbringing of the children Marina and her younger brother Velimir only determined by "trauma war", without love, without funding and without understanding? Even if you want to stay away with the inner structure of this family - the facts speak against it.

Of course, it is true that Marina Abramović's childhood and youth took place against a background that had colored through the memories that her parents had to the inhumanity of the war experienced ( "Abramović's upbringing play a backdrop that Colored by the memories her parent of the war inhumanity" , from a publication of Mary. Richards, download under Brunel University Research Archive )

Of course, it is true that Marina Abramović suffered from the impressions that her parents conveyed to her from the war - certainly conveyed very clearly because they reported on personal experiences.

Of course, Marina Abramović has used and processed these impressions in her art, and again and again, until today.

But is not in societies with interest in war prevention to inform children about the terrorists of the war indispensable part of the upbringing of every child? Often to shoulder through the schools alone because there are not enough committed parents who meet this task?

And is it really necessary to mention any details from the educational style that Abramović's parents practiced when treating this topic?

These parents have experienced terrible things and still had the courage to put children into the world. After the time of the fight for the liberation of his country, the father continued to work in a very well -paid profession to provide the family.

The mother not only raised the children, but also studied, and deliberately chosen a discipline with the art studies that gave her thoughts away from her bad experiences. She also made a career in this discipline as director of a Belgrade Museum.

Daughter Marina was obviously equipped with the basics of knowledge and creativity through her upbringing, which allowed her to think and produce art worldwide as an outstanding art. In addition, with self -confidence, education and the other skills it takes to survive in the international art business - and thus in front of many very clever people.

brother Velimir Abramović, born in 1952, also gave his upbringing the basis for an as successful and unusual career.

In 1985, Velimir Abramović received his doctorate, his doctoral thesis dealt with the problem of continuity in the natural philosophy of Leibniz and Boscovich. In 1989 Dr. Abramović was professor of film theory at the University of the Arts in Belgrade, 1990 Professor of Concepts from Time, Room and Matter in Natural Sciences at the Belgrader University, 2004 to 2007 Dean of the Faculty "Academy of Art" Belgrade.

The philosopher Abramović not only works in academic science, but has long been known as a Tesla expert .

The physicist and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla (1856 - 1943) , also Serbian descent, was a brilliant inventor. Among its 700 patents were so many decisive innovations in the field of electrical engineering (especially electrical energy technology, e.g. our alternating current) that the Balkans are referred to as the "cradle of modernity" ( critical-netzwerk.de ).

In addition, Tesla was one of the most dazzling science personalities of the 19th/20. Century, with a biography that is unparalleled in dramatic developments. Anyone who only deals briefly with their life will ask themselves why Hollywood only now comes to the “Unbelievable Number of Tesla Films to be made” .

After all, now it starts, with four films 2014, two 2015, and in 2016 "Tesla", theatrical release is scheduled for July 2016 and under "Grateful Acknowledgment" Velimir Abramovićs ( IMDB - Tesla - under IMDB - Velimir Abramovic you will find the films on which the professor has actively worked).

"Tesliana Scientific Magazine" in 1993 (see subsequent videos), wrote the book "The Light that Never Goes Out" about Nikola Tesla in 2009 and launched "Tesla Cosmological Studies" Belgrade and Moscow should become (in the works).

He also has z. B. 2001 The private philosophical school "Institute for the Science of Time" in Barajevo, Serbia, founded, where he works on the wording of the basics of time, more on this exciting topic and on Professor Dr. You can read Velimir Abramović's other activities on his website ConstantPresentTime.com .

In the field of art, Abramović is not only interested in film art, in 1967 he published a collection of poems called "Smeop" festival in Dubrovnik .

The keyword "art" recalls that this article is actually about the artist Marina Abramović. For which this insert could perhaps be made clear that, despite all the confrontation with the terrible experiences of her parents, she grew up in an extremely strong and successful family, which certainly gave her a lot more than a profound disgust of warlike arguments.

War again

Marina Abramović has not only been shaped by the experiences of her parents in relation to the subject area "Man and War" , because peace did not last very long in her homeland:

Serbia and the other Yugoslav republics developed their very own form of semi -industrialized society in the new socialist Yugoslavia in the new socialist Yugoslav in 1990, in which it was quite possible.

The everyone's venerated partisan leader and head of state Tito managed to transfigure communism into a "folk religion" and to become myth; For a long time, he was able to hold the different nationalities connected by the People's Republic of Yugoslavia quite conflict -free.

Not without an authoritarian style of government and violent elimination of political opponents, but quite independent of Russia and with independent foreign policy relationships with the West. After Tito had been elected President in 1953, he campaigned for equal rights for the states in peaceful coexistence and for developing countries.

Tito was committed together with the Egyptian President Nasser, the Indian Prime Minister Nehru and the Indonesian President Sukarno for political freedom of political freedom, and the International Movement (Organization) of the block -free states founded in 1961.

States that did not belong to any of the two military blocks of the Cold War and also wanted to remain neutral, who at the time were 25 members (Yugoslavia was one of the most respected) campaigned for peaceful coexistence and disarmament.

With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pacts in the early 1990s, the organization lost its founding purpose; What was left, however, remained an alliance that has set itself the goal of equality between the states and a positive economic development of the Member States.

With 120 members now, today the states of the block-free movement represent around 55 percent of the world's population and hold almost two thirds of the seats in the UN General Assembly.

Tito pursued an authoritarian government style in domestic policy, the agricultural property was immediately nationalized, and the craft was also nationalized in 1948; This was followed by rapid industrialization and urbanization of agricultural companies at the expense of the traditional village communities. In the interior, heavy industry, steelworks, motor vehicle production, gigantic lead zinc and copper pits and electrical industry were created.

Serbia had a vehicle and engine, machine and petrochemia industry by the end of the five-year plan in 1965; Significant infrastructure projects such as the almost 1200 km long transit motorway, the Danube-Theiss-Donau Canal, the hydropower plant Derdap and the railway traffic network were tackled and completed. When the system of the planned economy was abolished in 1965, the Yugoslavia had experienced a significant civilization change.

Tito's government also remained authoritarian afterwards, but after the regime -pursuing of the regime -based security chief Aleksandar Ranković, in 1966 there was a significant liberalization of Yugoslavia, with relatively free development opportunities for art and culture . Not good for the state, the cultural authorities pursued by national programs, with separation of language, the culture became a collection of national ambitions after the first amendment of the constitution in 1963.

At the same time, the first disagreements between the nationalities were also shown in other areas, the federal fund for the financing of infrastructure projects had to be stopped in 1970 due to disputes between Slovenia and Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro. "Croatian spring" , from Tito, caught "Bratstvo I Jedinstvo" ("Brotherhood and unity", the "core of Yugoslav socialism") showed themselves

The new constitution, which subsequently initiated by Titos in 1974, strengthened its position as president, but also emphasized federalism more, a further step towards the dissolution of the state of Yugoslavia in separate states. And an inner weakening of the state, which could no longer undo the age weak and highly impaired Tito, not even through the attempted attempt to preserve the unity of Yugoslavia in 1978 through his symbolic election as a lifelong president.

After Tito's death in 1980, the Jugoslav overall state dissolved at increasing pace, the economic crisis of the 1980s favored nationalist movements and programs to the same extent as the "refugee crisis" at the moment favors it. In Yugoslavia, too, the crisis quickly launched the fire -threatening "strong men/movements", who want to tear the power on themselves through mirrors n simple solutions, but, if you take a closer look/listen to, do not have the slightest useful proposal to cope with a complicated conflict situation.

In Yugoslavia, what hopefully will be spared all European countries in the course of coping with the current migration movement, with terrible consequences for all nationalities in the state:

Serbia was "reborn" around and with his new "strong man" Slobodan Milošević , the autonomy of Kosovo was circumcised from 1987 and in 1989. In 1990 the conflict worsened by the emergency of Slovenia from the covenant of the communists, in parallel, the Krajina heirs planned a military detachment of the Krajina of Croatia in the opposition to the Croatian independence movement, with the independence declaration of Slovenia and Croatia in early summer 1991 in the war .

The Yugoslavia war lasted until 1995, with ethnic cleansing, massacres, genocide, countless war dead, occupations and displacements, need because of the vital goods and a Serbia, which was stopped by UN Handelsemargo, which "from a precariat from criminals and bat types" ( de.wikipedia.org ) Miloševic-milieu was ruled.

The province of Kosovo, who was mostly populated by Albanians, remained a troublemaker, which the Serbian leadership under Slobodan Milošević tried to calm down with restrictive police and finally military interventions. The Kosovo Rieg followed from 1998 to 1999: a struggle of the Serbian leadership against the Uçk (“Liberation Army of Kosovo”), which was guided by serious human rights violations, was ended with the (detailed) intervention of the western states under the leadership of the United States through NATO military pressure.

Since the end of the Yugoslavia wars, Serbia (and Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro) has moved towards membership in the European Union, in addition to Turkey, the Balkan countries of Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia have been the last states on the European continent, which are not yet permanently anchoring as EU contribution candidates in a democratic community are.

How sad that almost the entire EU currently behaves as if it wanted to punish the need for a joint connection to the prevention of conflict, among other things. It is urgently hoped that this civilizational step backwards into times of small -state pampering/petitesses, which has long been believed to have passed, is only due to a current excessive demand.

However, prudent politicians who simply make their (European negotiating) work in the media reporting in the media reporting simply make their (European negotiating) work almost confident.

Art in their most distinguished task: as a memorial to war

Marina Abramović definitely had to process her parents' war signs when she set her most famous sign against war "Balkan Baroque" in 1997 (listed on the 47th Biennale di Venezia, awarded the Golden Lion)

"Balkan Baroque" ran four days, four hellish days on which the artist sat on a mountain for six hours a day, which had been piled up from 1500 fresh and still bloody beef bones. Abramović cleaned the bloody bones, with a metal brush and water (from a copper or a copper tray) she washed blood and meat residues, sang (continuously, for six hours) dead songs, a different folk song from one of the former Yugoslav sub-republics every day.

In the background, a video installation, Marina Abramović's parents with partly disturbing gestures, and a video recorded by the artist himself, which was broadcast as a loop. You can see Marina Abramović in the white laboratory; She explains to us how to use the cannibal "wolf rats" for rat destruction in the Balkans: If you lock and starve peaceful rats long enough, they become cannibals.

Igitt? What terrible animals? People are supposed to finish something similar, and man is the only animal all over the world, the individual of their own or other species brings in need so that they behave cruel. But man often and likes to do this - according to Abramović, the performance is called "Balkan Baroque" because people in the Balkans have a mentality full of contradictions that hardly anyone understands from outside; Hate and love, tenderness and cruelty, veneration of heroes and formation of hero legends, a penchant for cheaper, almost pornographic entertainment ...

The normal emphatic European would certainly not limit these essentials to the Balkans almost two decades later, he sees hatred of a so-called Islamic state towards every other person thinking in all other people who thinks of refugees in all of Europe, hero worship for the leaders of right-wing populist parties, the penchant for cheaper, almost pornographic entertainment in the event of television program, and hopefully still a bit of love and tenderness in private Environment.

The "generality of the message" , which Abramović was so important at the time, is currently being most terrible; As Abramović's second role in the video, dancing beauty with blood red cloth at the time, sensitive people perceive the everyday referendums of our days only as a parable in a world full of mad jokes and as a tragedy.

A lot of interpretation of interpretation has arisen for “Balkan Baroque” , in which all aspects of performance are analyzed and emphasized.

Before you deal with contributions about "Balkan Baroque", you should certainly watch the work yourself, in the video above you will find a almost ten-minute section with recordings of the preparation and follow-up, in the video "балканское броко | Balkan Baroque", which a somewhat longer film about a remake, in 2009 in the Moscow Solyanka club, and after that Documentary “Balkan Baroque” , the film director Pierre Coulibeuf in 1999 about Marina Abramović and with herself as a co -author and actress.

"Balkan Baroque" works immediately, the performance does not need an interpretation. It is not difficult to fathom that killer rats and bone plasters on the "ethnic cleansing" in the Yugoslavia wars.

The fact that the entire performance "Balkan Baroque" is an attempt by the artist to process the decay of her home country caused by a gruesome sequence of warlike conflicts and the related atrocities, everyone who is informed about the recent affairs and knows the basic features of the biography of the artist as a native Jugoslawin and child.

Recipients of subsequent generations that do not have the recent contemporary history of the nearby Balkan states are introduced in the video: "Balkan Baroque" was difficult to realize because neither official organizations nor people with political influence were willing to support Abramović's artistic and political statement on Yugoslavia wars.

Abramović was supposed to represent Serbia and then Montenegro in the Yugoslav National Pavilion at the Biennale. Serbia canceled after the artist introduced her design, Montenegro was undecided for a long time. After there was no response to the art campaign for the sentence sent, the newspapers read how the Montenegro Minister of Culture had said: everything was a misunderstanding that Abramović was not invited at all.

The cost of the work of art would be so great that the poor pensioners in Montenegro had nothing to eat if the state supported the action; There would be more important artists in Montenegro, their work smell bad ...

After the invitation, attacking the artist, playing different groups of society against each other, a rarely embarrassing political action. Abramović finally performed the performance "in exile", which was granted in the Italian pavilion.

In the introduction to the video it continues: "Balkans Baroque" is a contribution to cleaning the conscience , because the way into the future is only the open that does not shy away from seeing the horrors of the past and the present ...

When Marina Abramović staged "Balkan Baroque", she was already a recognized and famous artist, an overview of the development of her artistic work, the article "Marina Abramović: Art for Destructive Societies" .