Tag: collaboration

Marina Abramovic invented conscious uncoupling way before that dude from Coldplay.

Marina Abramovic, The Lovers (Two Vases), 1966, C-print

“In 1988, Ulay and Abramovic decided to end their relationship and to mark this with a performance, which became the legendary endpoint of their collaboration. After years of negotiations with the Chinese authorities, the artists got the permission to carry out ‘The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk’, in which they started to walk from different ends of the Chinese Wall in order to meet in the middle and say good-bye to each other. Abramovic started walking at the eastern end of the Wall, at Shan Hai Guan, on the shores of the Yellow Sea, Gulf of Bohai, walking westward. Ulay started at the western end of the Wall, at Jai Yu Guan, the south-western periphery of the Gobi Desert, walking eastward. After they both continuously walked for 90 says, they met at Er Lang Shn, in Shen Mu, Shaanxi province. Here, they embraced each other to go on with their life and work separately from then on.”

Womanhouse, Dining Room

Installation Artist: Miriam Schapiro (American, 1923-), Installation Artist: Karen LeCoq (American), Installation Artist: Robin Mitchell (American, 1951-), Installation Artist: Sherry Brody (American, 1932-), Installation Artist: Faith Wilding (American), Installation Artist: Beth Bachenheimer (American)

Creation date: January 30 – February 28, 1972Description: full viewType of Work: Installation (Visual Work)

Venice Biennale 2013

YOKO ONO, ARISING

A CALL WOMEN OF ALL AGES, FROM ALL COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD: YOU ARE INVITED TO SEND A TESTAMENT OF HARM DONE TO YOU FOR BEING A WOMAN. WRITE YOUR TESTAMENT IN YOUR OWN LANGUAGE, IN YOUR OWN WORDS, AND WRITE HOWEVER OPENLY YOU WISH. YOU MAY SIGN YOUR FIRST NAME IF YOU WISH, BUT DO NOT GIVE YOUR FULL NAME. SEND A PHOTOGRAPH ONLY OF YOUR EYES. THE TESTAMENTS OF HARM AND PHOTOGRAPHS OF YOUR EYES WILL BE EXHIBITED IN MY INSTALLATION ARISING, JUNE 1 – NOVEMBER 24, 2013, IN THE EXHIBITION, PERSONAL STRUCTURES, AT PALAZZO BEMBO IN VENICE, AS PART OF THE 55TH VENICE BIENNALE. A BOOK WILL ALSO BE PREPARED OF THE ARTWORK, AND A SELECTION OF YOUR TESTAMENTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS WILL BE PUBLISHED IN THIS BOOK. THE INSTALLATION ARISING WILL CONTINUE TO GROW AND WILL BE EXHIBITED IN MANY COUNTRIES. I VERY MUCH HOPE FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION.

yoko ono

April 29, 2013

Source: zoltanjokay.de

In 1988, Ulay and Abramovic decided to end their relationship and to mark this with a performance, which became the legendary endpoint of their collaboration. After years of negotiations with the Chinese authorities, the artists got the permission to carry out ‘The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk’, in which they started to walk from different ends of the Chinese Wall in order to meet in the middle and say good-bye to each other. Abramovic started walking at the eastern end of the Wall, at Shan Hai Guan, on the shores of the Yellow Sea, Gulf of Bohai, walking westward. Ulay started at the western end of the Wall, at Jai Yu Guan, the south-western periphery of the Gobi Desert, walking eastward. After they both continuously walked for 90 says, they met at Er Lang Shn, in Shen Mu, Shaanxi province. Here, they embraced each other to go on with their life and work separately from then on. As their work had often employed ritualized actions, mythology and Eastern thought, ‘The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk’ has to be considered the perfect end of the common oeuvre – also due to the Wall’s mythological and philosophical connotations. The performance was recorded by Murray Grigor for the BBC (16mm film, transferred to video), which resulted in the documentary ‘The Great Wall: Lovers at the Brink’, of which there exist a long screening-version and a shorter VHS-version

Presented for the first time at Sala Montcada, Fundació “la Caixa”, in the season “El yo diverso” (The diverse I), this small format, right-angled video projection relates to two other pieces: two photographs that recall Goya’s duel with clubs and a sculpture with silhouettes joined at the waist. The description of the video is as follows: two hands are digging out two holes in the ground and then covering them over, each hand using the earth dug out by the other. That enigmatic action is very beautiful and open to different interpretations. One of them is linked to one of the basic concerns of Cabello and Carceller’s career: working together, living together, thinking together; that could be symbolised by the figure of the couple, which was also the nexus of the three visions shown at Sala Montcada in Barcelona. The fiction the artists narrate revolves openly around the way we construct ourselves and the way we are constructed. The hands that appear in the projection are immersed in that task. First, they mark out the territory, then they dig out the earth, they finish the process and start all over again. But there is something curious here, which would tend to confirm what we have said. It seems that everything returns to what it was before, but the earth has changed place and, if we keep on with this continuous task, it will change places over and over again. Every action has its consequences, and all the more so if it is on our immediate environment. The earth could symbolise the most elemental raw material -what we are, our first feelings-, which we act on and on which the nearest person deposits the result of her actions. In that way, like most of Cabello and Carceller’s works, the video talks about team work and communal living. Another aspect we should point out is the character of this work in relation to other videos. So, as in the earlier Un beso (A kiss, 1995-1996) or Bollos (Dykes, 1996), this work is characterised by visual and temporal economy. They all show short, concise, and simple, actions, but open to interpretations. That is something both creators have continued in later works on the same support: Una habitación doble (A double room, 1998), Sin título (promesa) (Untitled, promise, 1998) and Sin título (viaje) (Untitled, journey, 1999).Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes

EGGS TO BREASTS

Vicki Hodgetts

We had a consciousness-raising session on kitchens.  Some people saw kitchens as fulsome, warm, nurturing.  Others saw kitchens as dangerous with hot stoves and sharp knives (“Viciousness in the kitchen—the potatoes hiss”).  I had a fleeting image of fried eggs stenciled over everything—walls, ceiling, floor—and some people saw breasts.  Breasts were nurturing—kitchens were the extension of mothers’ milk.  I felt a little railroaded.  I still wanted eggs.  And then Robin said, “Why not have a transformation from eggs to breasts,” and we were all delighted.  And that’s very important, because although I was the one who finally carried through that aspect of the kitchen (in the main) the idea was really a collective one.  It simply would never have existed if women had not tried to work together.

– Vicki Hodgett