ULAY/ABRAMOVIC
Marina Abramovic's performances are characterised by the artist's radical physical commitment. Not infrequently, her extreme self-experiments lead to life-threatening situations. In the work shown here, Art must be beautiful, Artist must be beautiful, from 1975, Abramovic, with a brush in one hand and a comb in the other, combed her hair for almost an hour, repeating the phrase that is also the title of the work. In the course of the performance, her movements became faster and faster, stronger and stronger, more and more painful, and literally got under her skin. The artist's body thus becomes for the spectators, who find themselves in the role of "mirror, mirror on the wall", the place where conventional notions are negotiated: notions of the role of women in the arts, as well as of an idealistic opinion on the beauty of art.