The Performance of the '70s

Azione sentimentale (Sentimental Action), her best known performance in 1973 for an exclusive female audience, presents the symbolism of the oppression of affection, love and the Catholic dimension of martyrdom through self-mutilation.

At the end of the performance, the artist's arm ideally takes the shape of a stem of a rose with thorns embedded in the flesh, and thus the self-inflicted wound with a razor blade on the palm transforms the hand into a red corolla.

Marina Abramovič (1946) is an American naturalised Serbian artist. She has been active since the 1960s. Her work explores the relationships between the artist and the public, and the contrast between the body’s limits and the mind’s possibilities.

In 1976 in Venice, on the occasion of the XXXVIII Biennale, Marina Abramovic, along with her former life and work partner Ulay, presented the performance Relation in Space. In her autobiography the artist writes: “We were naked, twenty metres away from each other [...] Ulay and I began to bump into each other [...] but each time we increased both the speed and the force of the impact: and in the end Ulay clashed hard against me”.

The main actors of the performance are the nudity of the bodies and the sound produced by their encounter-collision.

Nudity, in relation to the empty space in which the two artists move, helps to create a minimalist setting within which makes the intensity of their love stand out.