Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramovic

Babette Mangolte
USA
2007

What is important is less what you do than the state of mind you do it in. - Marina Abramovic

92", HD CAM
Color, English

about the film

In November 2005, Marina Abramovic presented a week of performances at the Guggenheim Museum. Each day, she appeared for seven hours straight, reenacting seven seminal performance works created during the 1960’s and the 1970’s by Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, Valie Export, Gina Pane, Joseph Beuys, and herself. Her aim was ‘to preserve the memory of performances that influenced her as an artist. There’s nobody to keep the history straight’. Beyond the process of documentation, the event turned into a socio-cultural phenomenon heralded for its ‘ceremonial’ and ‘meditative’ qualities. The film attempts to reveal the mechanisms of this metaphysical experience by focusing upon Abramovic’s body, and the changes it undergoes in each performance. Fragility, versatility, tenacity and endurance, and the tension between the audience and the artist are put to question in these seven ‘easy’ pieces.

about the director

Babette Mangolte is an experimental filmmaker living in New York City. A complete retrospective of her films and camerawork was organized the Berlin and Munich Cinematheque in 2000. In 2004, Anthology Films Archives in New York City opened her recent film Les Modèles de Pickpocket (2003) accompanied by a retrospective of all her films. Mangolte is also known for her photography of dance, theater and performances. She has published an essay on photography ‘My History: The Intractable’ in 1998.

awards

2007 Berlin Film Festival
Jerusalem Film Festival
Melbourne Film Festival

screenings

February 23 Saturday, 11:00 AM AFM Fitaş Beyoğlu 1

March 01 Saturday, 11:30 AM AFM CEPA Ankara 4

credits

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