The performance artist who sparked controversy by permitting spectators to do anything they wished to her body for six hours has revealed the moment when the stunt took a dramatic turn for the worse.
In 1974, Serbian conceptual artist Marina Abramović embarked on the most dangerous performance of her career, titled ‘Rhythm 0.’ For six hours, she stood motionless while allowing visitors to use a range of objects on her in any manner they chose.
To test the limits of human behavior when granted absolute control over another person’s body, Abramović provided 72 different objects for spectators to use as they wished.
Among the objects were a rose, feather, perfume, honey, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, a gun, and a bullet.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for the experiment to go south, but where did it all go wrong?
At first, the stunt was quite mild, with visitors either presenting her a rose or simply observing her as she stood still.
However, things would soon take a much darker turn.
“At the beginning, nothing really happened,” Abramović, now 77, later remarked in an interview on the Marina Abramović Institute YouTube channel.