Above: performance in "The Artist is Present"
I admire her work because she tries to explore different boundaries through interaction with often dangerous objects. I first read about her more recents endeavors entitled The Artist is Present in 2010 which featured her sitting immobile and silent whilst spectators could take turns sitting opposite her. This provoked deep emotions from audience members who often cried when confronted with the silent artist.
As I became intrigued by her interactive art, I read about Rhythm 0 which I found both inspiring and bizarre. Assigning herself a passive role and allowing the public to have access to those objects with no control over what they might do is a very interesting act of trust; the public started timidly but soon began to act aggressively whilst she remained impassive which resulted in rose thorns being put in her torso and a gun held to her head. She put herself in a state of complete vulnerability and I think this is a very interesting state to explore as an artist. At the end of 6 hours, a predetermined amount of time, she began to move toward the audience and they reacted by running away to avoid confrontation. I find the concept of running from consequences to your actions, especially actions that are taken against a passive individual very thought-provoking.
Most of her work involves some level of pain or tests of limits and boundaries, especially endurance but provide interesting reading because her conclusions from each leads her onto her next performance exhibit. Specifically, after Rhythm 10 she began to wonder about consciousness of the performer and this lead onto Rhythm 5 and Rhythm 2 which both explored this theme.
Overall, I find this artists work very inspiring because of her willingness to try things in order to discover a final conclusion. I think I would be very interested in portraying vulnerability through video mediums in further projects.
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