Marina Abramović Institute Presents Miles Greenberg's 24-Hour Long Performance
“You can’t ever be in more pain in art than you are in your real life.”
This week, performance artist Miles Greenberg will undertake his longest and most physically challenging performance to date, titled OYSTERKNIFE. Presented live online by the Marina Abramović Institute, the performance will consist of Greenberg walking atop a conveyor belt in an empty theater space inside Montreal’s Centre Phi for 24 hours straight. The title OYSTERKNIFE derives from Zora Neale-Hurston’s 1928 essay How It Feels To Be Colored Me, in which she states that she does not “weep at the world… I’m too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”
After taking leave from formal education at 17 years old, Greenberg launched a four year-long independent research project studying how movement and architecture relate to the Black body. He participated in a residency at Palais de Tokyo and has been mentored by Marina Abramović herself. His performances push the body to its physical limits and give audiences an “infinite gesture that goes out.” “You train yourself not to think about time…” he told HYPEBEAST about his death-defying performances. “You can’t ever be in more pain in art than you are in your real life.”
From July 16 to 17, the performance will be diffused on screens around the Centre Phi and presented live on MAI’s website.
Elsewhere, Banksy’s latest public intervention on the London Tube encourages people to wear face masks.
