

Marina Abramović review
For Marina Abramović, the simple act of existence can be art. Just look at her now-iconic piece ‘The Artist Is Present’, performed at MOMA in 2010, where visitors were able to sit at a table in front of the Serbian performance pioneer in silence for as long as they wanted. All she had to do was sit there and stare back, exist, and it was enough to move hundreds of people to tears, to feel like they had formed some kind of spiritual connection. Those visitors’ faces greet you like the world’s worst Zoom meeting as you walk into this long-delayed retrospective at the RA. There are stars of music, film and art (Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Klaus Biesenbach) and everyday schlubs like us too. Marina sits impassive, unmoving, but these mere mortals quiver and weep. They try to match her energy but they fail and collapse. Except Lou Reed who looks like he might already be dead. And that’s Marina. For decades she has put her body on the line to make big, bold, sweeping, direct art about nothing less than life, death, sex and love. She is totally, utterly committed to the art – that’s why it works, even when it gets a bit silly. It’s so intrusive that it’s almost stomach turning A table is laid out here with knives and saws, whips and chains, objects of ecstasy and torture. All around are videos of the performance in 1974 they were originally laid out for, ‘Rhythm 0’, where Abramović stood still for eight hours and invited the public to do what they wanted. And they did. They stripped her