Two artists/performers Marina Abramovic and Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen) met and fell in love in 1976 in Amsterdam. They immediately started working together and led “collective existence” that helped them work and stay together for 12 years. They wore the same clothes, did not have any secrets from each other and generally acted like twins. For their performance “Death of self” the artists connected their mouths with a special apparatus and breathed in exhales of each other running out of oxygen after 17 minutes and fainting. The project explored the ability of an individual to consume the individuality of another person, changing and erasing it.
In late 1980’s Marina and Ulay encountered difficulties in their relationship, preventing them from working and living their lives fully. To finish their love story in grand artistic manner, they decided to perform one last soul-searching trip together to have closure. Starting from the opposite ends of the Great Wall of China they met in the middle hugged and parted forever…each walking 2500 kilometers prior.
In 2010, Marina Abramovic had a solo retrospective performance at MoMA in New York called “The Artist is Present” exchanging long gazes with anyone who volunteered to sit in front of her. The entire performance lasted 716 hours and 30 minutes and Marina has looked into the eyes of 1500 exhibition visitors. The only gaze that truly counted though was:
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