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Walk through Walls. A Memoir
New York, Crown Archetype, 2016, 370 pages
Review by Francesco Mazzaferro
Part One
[Original Version: December 2016 - New Version: April 2019]
 |
| Fig. 1) The cover of the book |
This is an excellent book [1], which reads well
and will receive great attention also in the next years. Shortly after its
publication in English in October 2016, it was published in German in November
(Durch Mauern gehen: Autobiografie)
and in Italian in December (Attraversare
i muri: Un’autobiografia), and I would expect it will have much success in
these and in many other linguistical areas. The translation in German and
Italian usefully clarifies the meaning of the term “Memoir” in the original English title: it should not be intended in
the restrictive sense of ‘a collection of memories’, but as a veritable
‘autobiography’. In other terms, it is not an attempt to display certain
episodes and to focus only on certain aspects of life, but to offer a veritable
holistic view of a personality and the overall meaning of an artist’s life.
From the angle of art literature, it is also the history of the transformation
of performance art from an experimental form of creation to an artistic canon,
in a long progression which started in the alternative art circles for students
in Belgrade and finished (at least for now) with the setting-up of the Marina Abramović Institute in New York.
Marina Abramović (1946-) has co-signed the text
with James Kaplan (1951-). He is a much celebrated journalist, author and ghost
writer. It would be easy to assign to him and his experienced hand the literary
merits and qualities of the text: it is sufficient to list a few other
bestselling autobiographies which James has co-signed in the last twenty years
with very diverse personalities, like with the tennis player John McEnroe in
2002 [2] and the comedian Jerry Lewis in 2006 [3]. However, this is not the point
I would like to make here: it is not excluded – and in fact even
highly probable – that several of the painters, sculptors and architects who
authored writings over the centuries may have also been supported by literates,
as a minimum to review the text, in an effort to better draft their writings on art, so that they which would be more easily readable.
What seems to me highly relevant, however, is
that an artist like Marina Abramović has chosen the instrument of a book to
narrate her life and to offer an authentic interpretation of her art. Ms
Abramović, in fact, has been in the last decades the theorist of a durational
and ephemeral art, most based on performances developing over long time
(sometimes weeks and months) and very often leaving no or scarce physical
traces (or being documented in videos which would require an equal availability
of time). The only exceptions are what she called “transitory objects” [4]. They are parts of participatory
installations which permit the spectator to share the energy of Marina’s
long-time performances, which transits to them thanks to the
intermediation of these objects.
Her autobiography, like many other recent texts
of leading contemporary artists, testifies that art literature it not a
time-bound phenomenon: it has not only characterised – following Julius von Schlosser’s canonical reconstruction – a period between Middle Ages and the
late Eighteenth Century which covers the traditional definition of fine arts,
but is still a core form of reflection about every form of art creation, and
includes potentially any new artistic output. The good news is that art
literature is alive and kicking. The bad news is that its exploration remains a
Sisyphus work: the more new art literature outputs are released by way of old
and new technologies (think of the large set of video material now made
available to the large public via the internet) the more is necessary to
re-think also its past. The concept of art literature changes with time, as one
would also expect.
The fine arts creators – the ancient but also
the most modern artists – generate art literature because they need a
communication strategy; they cannot simply rely on the mere production of their
pieces and their exhibition to a (large or small) public. If a theory of art
literature were to be written today, it should be in fact based on analysing as
a starting point the essential requirement for artists to put into writing (but
today also to use other media) any conceptual element of their creation. It is
not a surprise that art literature has multiplied its size between the
Nineteenth and the Twentieth centuries, with the publication of monographs and
collective manifestos by artists in response to the development of aesthetics
and art criticism. It is equally not surprising that in those years art
literature was comparatively less developed exactly within those art streams (like French Impressionism) which were the least linked to a conceptualisation
of reality.
Marina Abramović, in this respect, confirms the
rule: the farthest is the artist’s creation from the immediate understanding of
the output by the public, the most compulsory is the need of the use of
language. The instruction texts accompanying the performances (see them below
the pictures in this post), which she has developed for the public to
understand her pieces, recall me those short literary writings, the tituli, which anonymous mediaeval
artists inscribed in mosaics and frescos to comment their images. And, last but
not least, the use of the genre of the autobiography also recalls the most
famous case in art literature: Benvenuto Cellini.
A parallel reading: Marina
Abramović and Benvenuto Cellini
What is absolute evident is that Marina’s
writing is conceived as a piece of literature, which however offers many views
and elements of information about her art and the intellectual circles within
which it developed (first in former Yugoslavia, than in Amsterdam and almost
everywhere across Europe, finally in the United States). However, the text is
above all the story of a personality: a rebellious and sensual woman, who has
been educated in communist Yugoslavia by a family of war heroes according to
high rigid standards (to make sure she would walk through walls, as the title says [5]). Marina learns therefore
to “accept and overcome pain and fear”
[6], but differently from what hoped by the mother, she will use her capacity not
to stick to the values of her society, but to defy every convention, living an
out-of-common life between Europe and the United States and eventually getting
emancipation, recognition and success, to the point to create her own method of
art, the Abramović method, based on that discipline and resistance to pain. It
is also the story of a very difficult and unhappy youth (the pages on the
complex relationship with the mother Danica, the father Vojin and the
grandmother Milica are really worth reading), and of intense love stories among
adults (firstly with the German performance artist Frank Uwe Laysiepen, called Ulay,
and then with the Italian contemporary artist Paolo Canevari). It is also a writing about
a long-life attempt to conduct a life without intellectual compromises, also at
the price of extreme poverty and social isolation, and it is therefore at time
a very austere text.
It may look curious, but something similar can
be said about the most famous autobiography in art literature: “The life of Benvenuto Cellini written by
himself”, dictated by the old Florentine artist to a young assistant
between 1558-1562, circulating for two centuries as a manuscript since then and
published in Italian for the first time in 1728 [7]. The text was translated in
many languages already at a relatively early stage (for the first time in
English by Thomas Nugent in 1771, in German by Goethe in 1796 and in French by André-Philippe
Tardieu de Saint-Marcel in 1822). The autobiography inspired Victor Berlioz to
compose the homonymous opera between 1834 and 1838, while Franz Liszt wrote an
article on “La Pensée de Benvenuto
Cellini” in 1838. In other words, between the first halves of the
Eighteenth and the Nineteenth centuries the newly-discovered autobiography of
the artist became an epochal and global success, to the point that Cellini was
more known for his literary text than for his artworks.
There are of course many differences between
Marina and Benvenuto: Cellini’s manuscript, while having been read and perhaps
revised by the literate Benedetto Varchi (1503–1565), remained unpublished for
around 170 years, perhaps also for its embarrassingly amoral contents; more
substantially, Cellini was a manufacturer of precious materials (especially
gold and silver), a producer of physical goods and therefore certainly all but
an immaterial and ephemeral artist like Marina. And yet, also his autobiography
was written with the aim to describe a rebellious personality, defying every
moral standard and political authority. Cellini committed repeatedly murders,
had a very disorderly, and in some respect also to today’s eye a still
unacceptably aggressive sexual life and practiced necromancy. His strategy of
communication was to enhance his success as an artist by drafting a text which
would depict him as a genuine and adventurous temperament, capable to survive
all difficulties, including conviction and imprisonment. He wanted to proof
that – as an artist providing precious works to popes, monarchs and dukes, and
therefore protected by them – he was able to live beyond the respect of common
rules. A hymn paid to the power of art to gain command on earthly things.
Marina has never being exercising violence on others, but learnt how to accept
risk and pain on herself. “My mother and
father had many faults; but they were both very brave and strong people, and
they passed along much of that strength and courage to me. Some big part of me
is thrilled by the unknown, by the idea of taking risks. When it comes to doing
risky things, I don’t care. I just go for it” [8].
Life as a long-life
performance
Marina wanted to transform her whole life in an
act of art: a long-life art performance, marked by visible aesthetic symbols.
To the point that – together with Ulay – she decided in 1976 to write a
manifesto celebrating her new nomadic life in an old Citroën bus.
Art Vital
No fixed living-place.
Permanent movement.
Direct contact.
Local relation.
Self-selection.
Passing limitations.
Taking risks.
Mobile energy.
No rehearsal.
No predicted end.
No repetition.
Extended vulnerability.
Exposure to chance.
Primary reactions [9]
This is a lyrical celebration of life as an act
of performance art. I cannot help but observe another aesthetic similitude to
Cellini’s autobiography, whose writing starts with a sonnet also celebrating
his atypical artist’s life.
This tale of my sore-troubled life I write,
To than the God of nature, who conveyed
My soul to me, and with such care hath stayed
That divers noble deeds I’ve brought to light.
‘T was He subdued my cruel fortune’s spite:
Life glory virtue measureless hath made
Such grace worth beauty be through me displayed
That few can rival, none surpass me quite.
Only it grieves me when I understand
What precious time in vanity I’ve spent –
The wind it beareth man’s frail thoughts away.
Yet, since remorse avails not, I’m content,
As erst I came, WELCOME to go one day,
Here in Florence of this fair Tuscan land [10].
Back to Marina, she asks in Walk through Walls: “What is art? I feel that if we see art as
something isolated, something holy and separate from everything, that means
it’s not life. Art must be a part of life. Art has to belong to everybody”
[11]. In 2011, she performed “An Artist's
Life Manifesto”, in occasion of a Gala dinner at the Museum of Contemporary
Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. The mission of the artist’s life was described in a
lyric containing prescripts on “an
artist’s conduct in his life” and on his relation to his love, erotic,
suffering, depression, suicide, inspiration, self-control, transparency,
symbols, silence and solitude. It follow sections on “an artist’s conduct in relation to work”, “an artist’s possessions” and on lists of an artist’s friends and
friends and different scenarios for death and funeral. It is, in many respect, an almost religious writing, based on the technique of Indian mantras. The text is reproduced
at the end of this first part of the review.
Life and symbols
The connection between art and life is marked
by symbols: “My work and my life are so
connected. And throughout my career, I’ve produced works whose unconscious
meaning only becomes clear to me over time. In Point of Contact, we were so close and yet that final tiny
space between us, the gap that ultimately prevented a merging of our souls, was
unbridgeable. In Rest Energy, Ulay
possessed the power to destroy me, and to literally break my heart. In Nature
of Mind, he was a brief but very
important passage in my life, one that blew through like a flash because the
emotions were so strong – and then, just like that, vanished definitely” [12].
Biography: the own life as art
Life experiences are crucial to understand
Marina Abramović’s art. This is testified not only by Walk through walls, but also by a 1992 work which is, in my
respect, its predecessor. I am referring to a theatre piece called “Biography”, which combined new pieces,
texts about her life and re-performances of old works. Interestingly, not much
is dedicated to this piece in the autobiography, possibly because it duplicates
the contents of the memoirs.
To me, it seems that Biography, which was shown between 1992 and 1994 in Madrid, Kassel,
Vienna, Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, Athen, Amsterdam and Antwerpen, is
instead a crucial piece, and indeed the confirmation that performance art,
literature and biography had been crossing their avenues well before the
recent publication of her autobiography. I managed to find an original of the
1994 version of the booklet accompanying the theatre piece (a sort of
libretto). It shows images of re-performances combined with short sentences on
the key episodes of her life. The ephemeral nature of those pieces, performed
as from the 1970s, is therefore overcome by repeating them after some decades.
Making ephemeral art
replicable
Walter Benjamin published a famous essay on “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction” in 1936 [18]. He wondered what would be the implications of
the possibility to reproduce, almost without any limits, art works which were
originally conceived to be admired by spectators in a limited number of
occasions during their life. Abramović followed an inverse track: she created –
as part of a revolutionary process – artworks which should intentionally be performed only
once, and then asked herself how the make them repeatable without losing
originality.
The Abramović method
One part of overcoming the ephemeral nature of
art without turning to the production of physical commodities is to establish a
“method” which can be learnt. “My
teaching and the workshops on which my teaching was based, were an extremely
important part of my career, not to mention the main sources of my income, for
more than twenty-five years. I taught in so many places: Paris, Hamburg, Berlin,
Kitakyusu in southern Japan, Copenhagen, Milan, Rome, Bern, and (longest of all
– eight years) Braunschweig in northern Germany. In each place I taught, I
always started with a workshop for the students. The workshops taught
endurance, concentration, perception, self-control, willpower, and
confrontation with mental and physical limits. This was the core of my teaching”
[23]. Students would be taken “outdoors,
always to a place that was either too cold or too hot, never comfortable, and,
while we fasted for three to five days, drinking only water and herbal teas,
and refraining from speaking, we would do various exercises” [24] to
control the body. “Students have asked me
what I expect them to get out of these workshops, and what I get out of them. I
tell them that after the workshops, participants get a burst of positive energy
and a flow of new ideas; their work becomes clear. The general feeling is that
the hardship was worth it. And a strong sense of unity is created between the
participants and me. Then we go to the academy and work” [25].
To promote the method, Marina has created in
2010 the Marina Abramović Institute (http://marinaAbramovićinstitute.org/). “MAI
explores, supports, and presents performance. MAI encourages collaboration
between the arts, science, and the humanities. MAI will serve as the legacy of Marina
Abramović” [26].
And in 2012 the Abramović Method was exhibited in Milan. “This was the first time I would use the Abramović Method to prepare the
public for their participation. (…) We worked with groups of twenty-five
participants every two hours. Upon entering, the participants were asked to put
all their belongings, including cell phones, watches, and computers, into
lockers, and put on white lab coats and noise-cancelling headphones. (…)”
[27]. The organizers “guided the
participants in a warm-up exercise meant to wake up the senses by moving and
stretching the body and massaging the eyes, ears, and mouth, and them
transitioned the groups to sit, stand and lie on each of the objects for thirty
minutes. Thus the participants became performers, and the rest of the public
could watch them with binoculars, able to take precise note of the tiniest
details about them: their slightest movements, their facial expressions, the
texture of their skin over a two-hour period. The public was both participating
in and witnessing a performance that were creating together. More and more, I
was removing myself from the work” [28].
After a life devoted to produce art in unique
and unrepeatable forms, the artist discovered the need to ensure continuity in
the future through the establishment of a canon and the creation of an
institution ensuring the transmission of her heritage. Also this was certainly
not a new development in art literature across the centuries. It is the eternal
story of the transition, simply along the duration of one life, from
experimentation to academia.
* * *
Marina Abramović: An Artist's Life Manifesto
1. An artist’s conduct in his life:
– An artist should not
lie to himself or others
- An artist should not
compromise for themselves or in regards to the art market
- An artist should not
kill other human beings
- An artist should not
make himself into an idol (you had originally written themselves but I put it
in
singular as you
started in singular)
- An artist should not
make himself into an idol
- An artist should not
make himself into an idol
2. An artist’s relation to his love life:
-An artist should
avoid falling in love with another artist
-An artist should
avoid falling in love with another artist
-An artist should
avoid falling in love with another artist
3. An artist’s relation to the erotic:
- An artist should
develop an erotic point of view on the world
- An artist should be
erotic
- An artist should be
erotic
- An artist should be
erotic
4. An artist’s relation to suffering:
- An artist should
suffer
- From the suffering
comes the best work
- Suffering brings
transformation
- Through the
suffering an artist transcends their spirit
- Through the
suffering an artist transcends their spirit
- Through the
suffering an artist transcends their spirit
5. An artist’s relation to depression:
- An artist should not
be depressed
- Depression is a
disease and should be cured
- Depression is not
productive for an artist
- Depression is not
productive for an artist
- Depression is not
productive for an artist
6. An artist’s relation to suicide:
- Suicide is a crime
against life
- An artist should not
commit suicide
- An artist should not
commit suicide
- An artist should not
commit suicide
7. An artist’s relation to inspiration:
- An artist should
look deep inside themselves for inspiration
- The deeper they look
inside themselves, the more universal they become
- The artist is
universe
- The artist is
universe
- The artist is
universe
8. An artist’s relation to self-control:
- The artist should
not have self-control about his life
- The artist should
have total self-control about his work
- The artist should
not have self-control about his life
- The artist should
have total self-control about his work
9. An artist’s relation with transparency:
- The artist should
give and receive at the same time
- Transparency means
receptive
- Transparency means
to give
- Transparency means
to receive
- Transparency means receptive
- Transparency means
to give
- Transparency means
to receive
- Transparency means receptive
- Transparency means
to give
- Transparency means
to receive
10. An artist’s relation to symbols:
- An artist creates
his own symbols
- Symbols are an
artist’s language
- The language must
then be translated
- Sometimes it is difficult
to find the key
- Sometimes it is
difficult to find the key
- Sometimes it is
difficult to find the key
11. An artist’s relation to silence:
- An artist has to
understand silence
- An artist has to
create a space for silence to enter his work
- Silence is like an
island in the middle of a turbulent ocean
- Silence is like an
island in the middle of a turbulent ocean
- Silence is like an
island in the middle of a turbulent ocean
12. An artist’s relation to solitude:
- An artist must make
time for the long periods of solitude
- Solitude is
extremely important
- Away from home
- Away from the studio
- Away from the family
- Away from friends
- An artist should
stay for long periods of time at waterfalls
- An artist should
stay for long periods of time at exploding volcanoes
- An artist should
stay for long periods of time looking at the fast running rivers
- An artist should
stay for long periods of time looking at the horizon where the ocean and sky
meet
- An artist should
stay for long periods of time looking at the stars in the night sky
13. An artist’s conduct in relation to work:
- An artist should
avoid going to the studio every day
- An artist should not
treat his work schedule as a bank employee does
- An artist should
explore life and work only when an idea comes to him in a dream or during the
day
as a vision that
arises as a surprise
- An artist should not
repeat himself
- An artist should not
overproduce
- An artist should
avoid his own art pollution
- An artist should
avoid his own art pollution
- An artist should
avoid his own art pollution
14. An artist’s possessions:
- Buddhist monks
advise that it is best to have nine possessions in their life:
1 robe for the summer
1 robe for the winter
1 pair of shoes
1 begging bowl for
food
1 mosquito net
1 umbrella
1 mat to sleep on
1 pair of glasses if
needed
- An artist should
decide for himself the minimum personal possessions they should have
- An artist should
have more and more of less and less
- An artist should
have more and more of less and less
- An artist should
have more and more of less and less
15. A list of an artist’s friends:
- An artist should
have friends that lift their spirits
- An artist should
have friends that lift their spirits
- An artist should
have friends that lift their spirits
16. A list of an artist’s enemies:
- Enemies are very
important
- The Dalai Lama has
said that it is easy to have compassion with friends but much more difficult to
have compassion with
enemies
- An artist has to
learn to forgive
- An artist has to
learn to forgive
- An artist has to
learn to forgive
17. Different death scenarios:
- An artist has to be
aware of his own mortality
- For an artist, it is
only important how he lives his life but also how he dies
- An artist should die
consciously without fear
- An artist should die
consciously without fear
- An artist should die
consciously without fear
18. Different funeral scenarios:
- An artist should
give instructions before the funeral so that everything is done the way he
wants it
- The funeral is the
artist’s last art piece before leaving
- The funeral is the
artist’s last art piece before leaving
- The funeral is the
artist’s last art piece before leaving
NOTES
[1] Abramović, Marina and Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls: a memoir, New York, Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown
Publishing Group, 2016, viii -370 pages.
[2] John McEnroe and John Kaplan - You Cannot Be
Serious, New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2002, 342 pages.
[3] Jerry Lewis and James Kaplan - Dean and Me: (A Love Story), 352 Seiten, New York, Three Rivers
Press, 2006, 352 pages.
[4] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 197.
[5] “I was expected to endure this punishment
without complaint. I think that, in a certain way, my mother was training me to
be a soldier like her. She might have been an ambivalent Communist, but she was
a tough one. True Communists had ‘walk through walls’ determination – Spartan
determination” (p. 11).
[6] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 19.
[7] Cellini, Benvenuto -
Vita di Benvenuto Cellini, Colonia [i.e. Napoli], 1728. See: http://www.internetculturale.it/jmms/iccuviewer/iccu.jsp?id=oai%3Abncf.firenze.sbn.it%3A21%3AFI0098%3AMagliabechi%3ARAVE009862&mode=all&teca=Bncf
[8] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 58.
[9] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 91.
[10] Translation by John Addington Symonds,
https://archive.org/stream/lifeofbenvenutoc01celluoft#page/70/mode/2up
https://archive.org/stream/lifeofbenvenutoc01celluoft#page/70/mode/2up
[11] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 251.
[12] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 118.
[13] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 161.
[14] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 180.
[15] Abramović, Marina, in cooperation with Charles
Atlas, Biography, Stuttgart, Caantz Verlag, 88 pages, Texts at pages 50, 54 and
56.
[17] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 220.
[18] Benjamin, Walter, The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction, New York, Penguin Books, 128 pages.
[19] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 279.
[20] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, pp. 278-279.
[21] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 278.
[22] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, pp. 282-283.
[23] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 222.
[24] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, pp. 220-221.
[25] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 224.
[26] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 354.
[27] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 345.
[28] Abramović, Marina with Kaplan, James - Walk
through walls … quoted, p. 345.
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