For over four decades, the self-proclaimed ‘Grandmother of performance art’, Marina Abramović (b.1946), has vigorously devoted her life to executing commanding performances; each one manifested with a bespoke depth of tone and feeling – and many reflective of pivotal personal moments from Abramović’s life.
The photograph on offer is a still from her 2004 performance, Cleaning the Floor, and eloquently eternalises a palpable moment long after the performance’s conclusion. Cleaning the Floor embodies the exploration of femininity and domesticity that became more visible in her later work. Abramović noted that early in her career she felt the need to prove herself and to substantiate the work. In Lovers: The Great Wall Walk performance in 1988, Abramović and fellow performance artist and collaborator Ulay, began on opposite ends of the Great Wall of China and walked towards each other for 90 days, the performance culminating with them meeting in the middle and ending their twelve-year relationship. Following that project, the closure and independence she felt marked a turning point in her career where she was emboldened to entwine and explore femininity in her work, 'After I finished the Chinese wall, I didn't need to prove to anybody anything anymore. That was really the turning point for me. . .' Indeed, if Lovers marked the end of one chapter of her career, Cleaning the Floor marks the apex of yet another; a performance that speaks to the inherent contradictions in what is expected of women. They must look the part of the screen siren while performing the chores of the domestic servant.
Abramović’s ever-evolving work continues to be at the forefront of the art world. This image from Cleaning the Floor was featured on the cover of ARTnews' ‘The Feminist Evolution’ December 2009 issue in celebration of her highly anticipated performance The Artist is Present which debuted alongside a retrospective of her work at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2010. Another retrospective opened in 2018 at the Bundeskunsthalle Museum in Germany and most recently the celebrated exhibition at the Royal Academy in London which opened in September of this year. Images and videos of Abramović’s work are held in private and public institutions worldwide. She has been awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the Venice Biennale among many honors.
© Marina Abramović. Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives / DACS, London 2023. Provenance
Directly from the artist
Private Collection, Switzerland
Private Collection, Switzerland (acquired from the above)Literature
ARTnews, December 2009, cover, p. 95
PaperCity, December 2017, pp. 77, 81 (installation images, this print)
Marina Abramović: The Bridge/El Puente, Milan: Charta, 1998, p. 198Artist Biography
Marina Abramović
Serbian • 1946
Marina Abramovic is celebrated as a pioneering practitioner of performance art, best known for her works that explore the physical limitations of the body, as well as the body’s potential as a vehicle to spiritual metamorphosis. Born in Belgrade, Abramovic studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade and in Zagreb, Croatia. She was among the first generation of performance artists of the 1970s, a group that often resorted to using their own bodies as an artistic medium. Her works often explore extremes of sensation, and, frequently, the audience is invited to participate in the intense, and often exhausting, painful performances. She later regularly collaborated with German artist Ulay on other performative works, exploring the capacities of the body, as well as constructions of gender and social systems in their pieces.
She also began traveling around the world to perform, exploring the body and nature as a means of achieving spiritual transformation, in locations ranging from the Gobi Desert to the Tibetan mountains, and the Great Wall of China. Abramovic’s presentations of her work include sound, video, photography, language, and sculpture, in addition to using her body as the central medium for her work. She has exhibited her work at the Venice Biennale, where she won a Golden Lion award in 1997, and at Documenta in Kassel, the Whitney Biennial, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Art Basel in Switzerland, and the Kumamoto Museum of Contemporary Art in Japan, among many other venues.
She currently lives and works in Amsterdam and New York.
PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION
15
Cleaning the Floor
2004
Dye destruction print, mounted.
Image: 127 x 98 cm (50 x 38 5/8 in.)
Frame: 173 x 143 cm (68 1/8 x 56 1/4 in.)
Signed, dated in ink, printed title, date and number AP 1/2 on a Certificate of Authenticity accompanying the work. One from an edition of 5 + 2APs.
Estimate
£40,000 - 60,000 ‡♠
Sold for £48,260
Rachel Peart
Head of Department, London
RPeart@phillips.com
Yuka Yamaji
Head of Photographs, Europe
YYamaji@phillips.com
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Photographs
London Auction 21 November 2023
14
This lot is no longer available.
