love-god-herself:

darthvatrix:

old-school-butch:

captainsuperlesbian:

cornerstorebitch:

femsolid:

Rhythm 0 (1974) was a six-hour work of performance art by Serbian artist Marina Abramović in Studio Morra, Naples.The work involved Abramović standing still while the audience was
invited to do to her whatever they wished, using one of 72 objects she
had placed on a table. These included a rose, feather, perfume, honey,
bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, and a gun
loaded with one bullet.

There was no separate stage. Abramović and the visitors stood in the
same space, making it clear that the latter were part of the work^. The purpose of the piece, she said, was to find out how far the public
would go: “What is the public about and what are they going to do in
this kind of situation?” Her instructions were placed on the table:

Instructions.
There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired.
Performance.
I am the object.
During this period I take full responsibility.

Duration: 6 hours (8 pm – 2 am)

Abramović said the work “pushed her body to the limits.“Visitors were gentle to begin with, offering her a rose or a kiss. Art critic Thomas McEvilley, who was present, wrote:

It began tamely. Someone turned her around. Someone thrust her arms
into the air. Someone touched her somewhat intimately. The Neapolitan
night began to heat up. In the third hour all her clothes were cut from
her with razor blades. In the fourth hour the same blades began to
explore her skin. Her throat was slashed so someone could suck her
blood. Various minor sexual assaults were carried out on her body. She
was so committed to the piece that she would not have resisted rape or
murder. Faced with her abdication of will, with its implied collapse of
human psychology, a protective group began to define itself in the
audience. When a loaded gun was thrust to Marina’s head and her own
finger was being worked around the trigger, a fight broke out between
the audience factions.

As Abramović described it later: “What I learned was that… if you
leave it up to the audience, they can kill you.” … “I felt really
violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one
person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an
aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up
and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an
actual confrontation.”

When the gallery announced the work was over, and Abramović began to
move again, she said the audience left, unable to face her as a person.

This performance showed just how easy it is to
dehumanize a person who doesn’t fight back, and is particularly powerful
because it defies what we think we know about ourselves. I’m certain
that no one reading this believes the people around him/her capable of
doing such things to another human being, but this performance proves
otherwise.

x 

x

things began “tamely” — with men immediately touching and kissing her. how telling.

I wonder which gender these two factions consisted primarily of hmmm

Repeat this experiment with a man.

Would the performance have turned out different if she hadn’t put the razor out there on the table? The choice of a razor began the process of sexual assault.

The only woman interacting with her directly in these pictures is wiping away her tears for her.