What is it about?
Born in Yugoslavia under Tito's repressive regime, Marina Abramovic emerged to become one of the world's most influential performance artists. Her harrowing performances—exploring the limits of pain, boredom and disgust—having taken to the heights of art world recognition, including awards of the Venice Biennial and major solo exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This article reviews her memoir, "Walk Through Walls."
Featured Image
Why is it important?
This substantial review looks at Abramovic's memoir in the context of her career, other important commentaries on her life and work, and other artists' autobiographies. As such, it is part of my long-standing exploration of life writing by artists, which has led me to produce dozens of reviews, articles and conference papers, and is part of the foundation for my book "Artists' Autobiographies from Today to the Renaissance and Back Again," forthcoming from Routledge.
Perspectives
There's no doubt that Abramovic is a highly influential artist. As such, the story of her life and work is well worth reading for anyone interested in contemporary art. While this book covers much of the same ground as James Westcott's biography "When Marina Abramovic Dies," from my perspective "Walk Through Walls" is the better read, not least because Abramovic's co-writer, James Kaplan, is a real pro.
Charles Reeve
OCAD University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: WALK THROUGH WALLS: A MEMOIR (Marina Abramovic, with James Kaplan), Public, October 2017, Intellect,
DOI: 10.1386/public.28.56.221_5.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
