MSUM: The Body and the East Archive. Focus: Marina Abramović

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974, installation in the exhibition: The Present and Presence - Repetition 1

from Friday, 21 September 2012

Focus: Marina Abramović is the first in a series of highlights on individual artists from the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Maistrova 3.

The Body and the East exhibition, staged at the Moderna galerija in 1998, was the first major overview of body art in Eastern Europe since the 1960s, featuring over 80 artists from 14 countries of Eastern Europe, also Marina Abramović. Marina Abramović's international career is closely related to the Moderna galerija: in 1996 Abramović took part in the project For the Museum of Contemporary Art Sarajevo 2000 and in the international symposium "Living with Genocide." Two years later she had a survey exhibition at the Moderna galerija entitled Artist Body ? Public Body. She donated one of her most radical performances Rhythm 0 to the Moderna galerija for its Arteast 2000+ collection. She presented the work at the Mala galerija in 1999 and at the inauguration of the international collection Arteast 2000+ in the Metelkova building in 2000. In 2006, she took part in the Arteast 2000+23 exhibition at the Moderna galerija with her Proposal for Rhythm 0, 1974, a Remake, and two years later at the action Hosting Moderna galerija! at the Art Gallery Maribor. Last year, Rhythm 0 was shown at the MACBA in Barcelona, as part of the exhibition Museum of Parallel Narratives in the framework of the inter-institutional project L'Internationale. Marina Abramović participated in another show in the framework of L'Internationale with the same work, viz. Museum of Affects; this was the exhibition with which we opened the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (+MSUM) in November 2011.

In addition to Rhythm 0 (1974) and the documentary material presented as part of the Body and the East Archive project, most of which comes from the Moderna galerija Archives department, also Abramović's Cleaning the Mirror, 1995, is on view; the artist donated this work for the future Museum of Contemporary Art Sarajevo 2000.