© Stefan Fürtbauer
Marina Abramović at the Health Center of Dr. Nonna Brenner in Fuschl am See
August 27, 2024
Bernd Skupin
Pain and suffering are the great themes of Marina Abramović's art. In her latest project, she now focuses on health.
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The art world knows her as the woman of pain. "Pain is my specialty," says Marina Abramović herself. "Throughout my career, I have exposed myself to it in front of my audience. I show people that if I can go through my pain, they can go through theirs too. I am their mirror."
She ironically called herself the grandmother of performance art. The radical way in which the now 77-year-old uses her body, the pathos and drama, has set a precedent. Many perform in this way today, albeit rarely with the charisma of the officer's daughter born in Belgrade in 1946.
She risked her life for art. In Rhythm 0, she exposed herself to the audience's whim for six hours in Naples in 1974. On a table were 72 objects, with which the audience was allowed to perform any conceivable actions on her, including a rose, perfume, honey, bread and wine, but also scissors, a scalpel, a metal rod and a revolver.
Abramović became a global celebrity in 2010 with her performance The Artist is Present. During her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, she sat every day during opening hours from March 14 to May 31 of that year in the museum's atrium at a table in silence.
Across from her was a chair where visitors could sit to look her in the face and be looked at by her. After 721 hours, the performance ended, having been watched by 750,000 visitors, and around 1500 of them, including Sharon Stone, Tilda Swinton, Björk and Lady Gaga, sat with Abramović.
And her latest work? It is a health and beauty line with a face lotion and three types of drops for more energy, immune strength and with anti-allergic effects. Not necessarily what one would expect from the grand dame of radical art, who repeatedly explores the depths of pain and suffering and transforms them into compelling images and actions. But meeting expectations has never been Marina Abramović's thing.
The art world reacted irritably and sensed either satire or mere commerce. The products have proud prices. The drops each cost £99 (approx. €116), the lotion £199 (approx. €224), and the complete package with all four elixirs is available for £459 (approx. €534). Some critics were downright stunned.
With mild mockery, author Sarah Rose Sharp commented on the coup. In the trendy online magazine Hyperallergic, she noted that despite all the praise for the artist, "there is not nearly enough talk about how incredibly dewy her skin is. As a critic, I've often wondered: Why does she always look somehow moist? You can say what you want about Marina Abramović, but she's probably the contemporary artist with the freshest complexion."
But there is also another, less materialistic narrative to the project. It comes from Marina Abramović herself and her collaborator Dr. Nonna Brenner, who runs a health and wellness center in Fuschl am See, Austria. This narrative has much to do with the relationship between the two women.
© Marina Abramović Longevity Method
Immune drops, anti-allergy drops, face lotion, and energy drops from the line by Marina Abramović
Brenner's intimate refuge - she rarely takes in more than four patients at a time - has become a place of retreat and healing for Abramović since she was cured of Lyme disease here in 2017. "I was so sick, my energy was completely depleted, I was given antibiotics, but nothing helped," she told the Financial Times.
"Finally, I came to Nonna. She applied leeches as part of the healing process. You can't imagine how much poison came out of me." Brenner, who is from Kazakhstan and is as impressive a figure as Marina Abramović, earned her doctorate in Almaty but then moved further east in search of a more holistic approach, turning to Tibetan medicine.
Marina Abramović, in turn, has been involved with Tibetan culture and spirituality for decades. This, their strong personalities, and certain biographical parallels probably connect them. "We are both Eastern European women. I grew up under communism, but my grandmother was obsessed with the Russian Orthodox Church, and Nonna is Kazakh Orthodox," the artist explains.
"We both grew up with everyone always dressed in black because someone had just died, but we also like to laugh and share a love for the dramatic and a strong connection to music, literature, and poetry." Additionally, Abramović narrowly survived a pulmonary embolism last year: three surgeries, nine blood transfusions, six weeks in intensive care.
The proximity of death apparently awakens a special will to live in her and a new appreciation of health, which she now also wants to convey to others. She formulates her own goal clearly: to reach at least 100, if only because, in her opinion, artists only receive real recognition then. But she would prefer to reach 103 – just like her grandmother.
The immune drops contain fresh garlic for its antiviral and antibacterial properties.
The four products by Marina Abramović, which she composed with Nonna Brenner, are meant to help her and us now. The immune drops contain fresh garlic for its antiviral and antibacterial properties, along with chili powder, lemon, and shilajit, a resinous substance from the Asian mountains that is said to enhance vitality and strength.
The anti-allergy drops feature licorice root, which is rich in antioxidants and is used to combat allergic reactions. The energy drops are intended to convey a feeling of inner strength with cranberry juice, succinic acid, which gives energy to cells, and grape seed flour, which promotes circulation and cardiovascular health.
Finally, the facial lotion contains moisturizing plant substances, essential oils, vitamin C, and hyaluronic acid, as well as enzymes that arise from the fermentation of white bread and white wine. And if the desired effect doesn't occur? Then one should consider that an Abramović work will hardly ever be obtained so cheaply again.
The Marina Abramović Method: Guide for a Restart
With one exception. The new products are a sideline of the Marina Abramović method, in which the artist bundles her experiences and insights gathered in almost 60 years of performance on how to expand the limits of body, mind, and perception and wants to pass this knowledge on to others.
A box with 30 cards that give instructions is already available for €15.99. In addition to certain breathing and mindfulness techniques, for example, a pile of rice grains is to be slowly counted piece by piece. One should also repeatedly open a door for up to three hours but not go through it. For another exercise, you have to blindfold yourself, plug your ears, and then explore the room you are in for an hour.
Es sind Handlungen, die einen sicher aus dem Wirbel permanenter Ablenkung und Reizüberflutung herausführen und vielleicht wirklich Geist und Wahrnehmung erweitern. Zugleich haben sie etwas Sektenhaftes an sich, und manche erinnern mit ihrer Tendenz zu sensorischer Deprivation und sinnentleerten Tätigkeiten auch an eine milde Form von Folter.
Da scheint dann auch der Schmerz wieder auf, der Marina Abramovićs Kunst durchzieht und sie zu einem Erfolgsmodell gemacht hat. Man kann in Marina Abramović eine Schamanin für unsere Zeit sehen – eine durchaus geschäftstüchtige Schamanin zwischen globalem Kunst-Jet-Set und Selfcare.
