Artist Marina Abramovic narrates this memoir documenting her life and 50 years of performance art. Her Yugoslavian-accented English and unique phrasing patterned with starts and stops make this listening experience as distinctive as Abramovic’s art. Her smoky-voiced, even-toned reading balances the often horrific accounts of her abusive childhood, world travels, spiritual search, love life, and pain-centered performances. In a steady serious tone, Abramovic immerses listeners in oppressive Communist Belgrade, where she discovers that “art is a matter of life and death.” Believing that her body is an object to be acted upon, the artist explains how her extreme, disturbing, masochistic performances revolutionized the art world. Like her live audiences, Abramovic’s listeners enter into her narrated performance art and discover that “the artist is present.” R.T. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
“I had experienced absolute freedom-I had felt that my body was without boundaries, limitless; that pain didn't matter, that nothing mattered at all-and it intoxicated me.”
In 2010, more than 750,000 people stood in line at Marina Abramovi¿'s MoMA retrospective for the chance to sit across from her and communicate with her nonverbally in an unprecedented durational performance that lasted more than 700 hours. This celebration of nearly fifty years of groundbreaking performance art demonstrated once again that Marina Abramovi¿ is truly a force of nature.
The child of Communist war-hero parents under Tito's regime in postwar Yugoslavia, she was raised with a relentless work ethic. Even as she was beginning to build an international artistic career, Marina lived at home under her mother's abusive control, strictly obeying a 10 p.m. curfew. But nothing could quell her insatiable curiosity, her desire to connect with people, or her distinctly Balkan sense of humor-all of which informs her art and her life. The beating heart of Walk Through Walls is an operatic love story-a twelve-year collaboration with fellow performance artist Ulay, much of which was spent penniless in a van traveling across Europe-a relationship that began to unravel and came to a dramatic end atop the Great Wall of China.
Marina's story, by turns moving, epic, and dryly funny, informs an incomparable artistic career that involves pushing her body past the limits of fear, pain, exhaustion, and danger in an uncompromising quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. A remarkable work of performance in its own right, Walk Through Walls is a vivid and powerful rendering of the unparalleled life of an extraordinary artist.
"1123918159"
In 2010, more than 750,000 people stood in line at Marina Abramovi¿'s MoMA retrospective for the chance to sit across from her and communicate with her nonverbally in an unprecedented durational performance that lasted more than 700 hours. This celebration of nearly fifty years of groundbreaking performance art demonstrated once again that Marina Abramovi¿ is truly a force of nature.
The child of Communist war-hero parents under Tito's regime in postwar Yugoslavia, she was raised with a relentless work ethic. Even as she was beginning to build an international artistic career, Marina lived at home under her mother's abusive control, strictly obeying a 10 p.m. curfew. But nothing could quell her insatiable curiosity, her desire to connect with people, or her distinctly Balkan sense of humor-all of which informs her art and her life. The beating heart of Walk Through Walls is an operatic love story-a twelve-year collaboration with fellow performance artist Ulay, much of which was spent penniless in a van traveling across Europe-a relationship that began to unravel and came to a dramatic end atop the Great Wall of China.
Marina's story, by turns moving, epic, and dryly funny, informs an incomparable artistic career that involves pushing her body past the limits of fear, pain, exhaustion, and danger in an uncompromising quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. A remarkable work of performance in its own right, Walk Through Walls is a vivid and powerful rendering of the unparalleled life of an extraordinary artist.
Walk Through Walls: A Memoir
“I had experienced absolute freedom-I had felt that my body was without boundaries, limitless; that pain didn't matter, that nothing mattered at all-and it intoxicated me.”
In 2010, more than 750,000 people stood in line at Marina Abramovi¿'s MoMA retrospective for the chance to sit across from her and communicate with her nonverbally in an unprecedented durational performance that lasted more than 700 hours. This celebration of nearly fifty years of groundbreaking performance art demonstrated once again that Marina Abramovi¿ is truly a force of nature.
The child of Communist war-hero parents under Tito's regime in postwar Yugoslavia, she was raised with a relentless work ethic. Even as she was beginning to build an international artistic career, Marina lived at home under her mother's abusive control, strictly obeying a 10 p.m. curfew. But nothing could quell her insatiable curiosity, her desire to connect with people, or her distinctly Balkan sense of humor-all of which informs her art and her life. The beating heart of Walk Through Walls is an operatic love story-a twelve-year collaboration with fellow performance artist Ulay, much of which was spent penniless in a van traveling across Europe-a relationship that began to unravel and came to a dramatic end atop the Great Wall of China.
Marina's story, by turns moving, epic, and dryly funny, informs an incomparable artistic career that involves pushing her body past the limits of fear, pain, exhaustion, and danger in an uncompromising quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. A remarkable work of performance in its own right, Walk Through Walls is a vivid and powerful rendering of the unparalleled life of an extraordinary artist.
In 2010, more than 750,000 people stood in line at Marina Abramovi¿'s MoMA retrospective for the chance to sit across from her and communicate with her nonverbally in an unprecedented durational performance that lasted more than 700 hours. This celebration of nearly fifty years of groundbreaking performance art demonstrated once again that Marina Abramovi¿ is truly a force of nature.
The child of Communist war-hero parents under Tito's regime in postwar Yugoslavia, she was raised with a relentless work ethic. Even as she was beginning to build an international artistic career, Marina lived at home under her mother's abusive control, strictly obeying a 10 p.m. curfew. But nothing could quell her insatiable curiosity, her desire to connect with people, or her distinctly Balkan sense of humor-all of which informs her art and her life. The beating heart of Walk Through Walls is an operatic love story-a twelve-year collaboration with fellow performance artist Ulay, much of which was spent penniless in a van traveling across Europe-a relationship that began to unravel and came to a dramatic end atop the Great Wall of China.
Marina's story, by turns moving, epic, and dryly funny, informs an incomparable artistic career that involves pushing her body past the limits of fear, pain, exhaustion, and danger in an uncompromising quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. A remarkable work of performance in its own right, Walk Through Walls is a vivid and powerful rendering of the unparalleled life of an extraordinary artist.
25.0
In Stock
5
1
25.0
In Stock
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940171906559 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
Publication date: | 10/25/2016 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
Videos
![](/static/img/products/pdp/default_vid_image.gif)
From the B&N Reads Blog