Interview with Marina Abramović | VPRO Documentary
299Interview with Marina Abramović. Due to copyright limitations we don’t show the clips mentioned, but instead we describe them below.
00:00 Introduction
The video opens with tv static, followed by the animated logo that used to introduce Radio Television Belgrade broadcasts in the late 1950s. It is a classic globe animation with a black-and-white banner draped around it.
08:04 Death of Tito (1980)
Clip from Days of Pain and Pride (RTS 1980) by Dejan Karaklajić, documenting the days after the death of Marshal Josip Broz Tito. Correspondents from all Yugoslav TV centers cooperated to make this film. President Tito died in Ljubljana on May 4, 1980. We see a visibly disconcerted news reader announcing his death on television, followed by images of people upset and crying. Among them a group of miners, who have taken off their helmets to sing next to a portrait of the deceased leader. Tito’s body was brought to Belgrade on the luxurious Blue Train that he used for traveling in Yugoslavia. We see images of the coffin on the train and of flowers and huge crowds of people lining the railway tracks all over the country.
21:47 Artist Tehching Hsieh (2017)
This interview was recorded at the Venice Biennale in 2017, where performance artist Tehching Hsieh had an overview exhibition of his six performances lasting one entire year. In One Year Performance 1980-1981 (Time Clock Piece), Hsieh subjected himself to the discipline of clocking on to a worker’s time clock on the hour, every hour, for a whole year. Hsieh: ‘In a way, punching a clock is not productive and thus time wasted. (...) To me, the one-year unit is precisely a basic measure of human life on this planet. One year is also the time for the earth to circle once around the sun. It relates the rhythm of the entire universe. For me, it is not about suffering, it is about survival, but I am not going to emphasize that. Because my work is not about endurance. If it were, then I would extend it for another year. It is not that I don’t believe it can be done but no one would want to waste the time to do it. In fact, of all human behaviors, which one is not wasting time?’
30:06 Three “head pieces”
Head Piece (1997) by Melati Suryodarmo refers to her feelings about the cultural and political state of her homeland, Indonesia. The black-and-white video shows a close-up of the artist, eyes looking straight into the camera, with her fists clenched, circling and blocking her ears.
In Hullabelly (2002), artist Nezaket Ekici gives the everyday hula hoop a political twist, altering the use of the glittering hoop by restricting its performance to her neck, where it makes repeated contact with her headscarf.
The piece Dead Tongue (2015) features artist Christian Thompson with two paper Union Jack pennants fluttering between his teeth. The sound is of the artist singing in his father's Indigenous Australian language of Bidjara, a language categorized as extinct.
38:53 Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy (1990)
A five-day conference at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam which brought together scientists, economists, thinkers and artists. The clip shows the Dalai Lama, artist Robert Rauschenberg, scientist David Bohm and economist Stanislav Menshikov talking about competition and compassion. Scientist Fritjof Capra interrupts the conversation: In patriarchal societies, people frequently talk about human nature when they really mean ‘male human nature’. That is a very frequent confusion. And I think the discussion this morning about competition is a good example of a question that we cannot expect to be solved by an all male panel.
47:11 The Color of Pomegranates (1969)
The color of Pomegranates is a 1969 Soviet Armenian art film by Sergei Parajanov. The film is a poetic treatment of the life of 18th-century Armenian poet and troubadour Sayat-Nova. The clip shows scenes that illustrate life in the monastery and the cycle of life: monks eating pomegranates and pressing grapes, an orthodox priest performing a ritual with incense, a religious wedding ceremony, death and the baptism of a newborn baby.
54:45 Maria by Callas (2017)
This documentary by Tom Volf depicts the life and work of opera singer Maria Callas in her own words, using performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs—nearly all of which have never been shown to the public. In the clip Maria Callas talks about her difficult childhood and her demanding mother, who had decided that Maria should become a famous singer.
01:07:40 Spirit House: Insomnia (1997
In this clip we see a younger Marina Abramović wearing a black dress in a white room with just one beam of light dancing the tango, not with a partner but with her own shadow. Marina does not look at the camera and seems to be dancing in the space all by herself. We hear the song Ana El Owerka by Algerian singer Lili Boniche.