Rhythm 0 was a six-hour long endurance art performed by the Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović in Naples in 1974.[1] The work involved Abramović standing still while the audience was invited to do to her whatever they wished, using one of 72 objects she had placed on a table. These included a rose, feather, perfume, honey, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, a gun, and a bullet.[2][3]
There were no separate stages. Abramović and the visitors stood in the same space, making it clear that the latter were part of the work.[4] The purpose of the piece, she said, was to find out how far the public would go: "What is the public about and what are they going to do in this kind of situation?"[5]
- ^ Abramović, Marina; Thompson, Chris; Weslien, Katarina (2006). "Pure Raw: Performance, Pedagogy, and (Re)presentation". PAJ. 28 (1): 29–50. JSTOR 4139995.
- ^ "Marina Abramović on Rhythm 0 (1974)", Marina Abramović Institute, 2014, c. 01:00 mins.
- ^ "Marina Abramović. Rhythm 0. 1974", Museum of Modern Art.
- ^ Frazer Ward, No Innocent Bystanders: Performance Art and Audience, University Press of New England, 2012, p. 125.
- ^ Abramović 2014, c. 00:00 mins.