Marina Abramovic As Artist-Shaman!

I saw the video "Marina Abramovic, The Artist is Present" yesterday, showing all her monumental exhibits and previous performance pieces...that woman is a true artist-shaman!

Marina Abramovic, born in Yugoslavia in 1946, has a career that spans approximately fifty works over four decades of interventions and sound pieces, video works, installations, photographs, solo performances, and collaborative performances.

"The Artist is Present" is the longest solo performance ever undertaken by an artist in a museum setting, MOMA. For 3 months everyday for 8 hours a day, Marina sat still in a chair inviting the audience to take turns sitting in a chair opposite her in silence with locked eye contact. It turns out that if you can empty your mind each time before, you can connect with the other stranger's essence and many many people were so moved by this connection with Marina that tears rolled down their faces in joy.

Now this is an example of how art can be transformative, just as a shaman in ancient societies transformed people with their spells.

Marina's earlier performance pieces were also dramatic pointing to hidden aspects of human nature, which is what art should really be about. Since her early days in Serbia, Marina has put herself under extreme physical and mental duress to jolt viewers out of ordinary patterns of thinking. When she cut herself with a knife, or slammed her body into a wall, it was done with such purity, the viewer was lifted temporarily out of themselves. It is the opposite of sensationalism or exhibitionism, it is pure magic to behold.