Silencing Glastonbury for Seven Minutes May Be Marina Abramović’s Most Daring Work Yet
The Serbian artist looks to raise awareness to the “dark moment” that faces the socio-political order.
Glastonbury Festival is well underway as international visitors descend in Somerset for five days of love, dancing and debauchery. The over 50 year event had a somewhat peculiar act today as acclaimed Serbian artist Marina Abramović attempted to ask audiences at the Pyramid Stage, one of the loudest areas in the grounds, to be silent for seven minutes.
Globally recognized for her audacious conceptual works, Abramović famously once invited audiences to come sit and stare at her for eight hours a day for nearly three months in 2010 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Dressed on stage in a white peace sign dress, her latest intervention is meant to raise awareness to this “dark moment,” said the artist in a statement, regarding the current socio-political order. “I don’t know any visual artists who have done something like this in front of 175,000 to 200,000 people, Abramović told the Guardian. “The largest audience I ever had was 6,000 people in a stadium and I was thinking ‘wow’, but this is really beyond anything I’ve done.”
Described by the artist as a “public intervention,” her performance was scheduled several hours ago (local time), just prior to PJ Harvey’s set and is presented in collaboration with social arts collective CIRCA. “We are really facing a dark moment in human history. So what can be done? I always think protest brings more protest; hate brings more hate. I think it’s important to turn to your own self. It’s easy to criticize everything else but what can I do in my own self, how can I change?”
Abramović isn’t naive, however, and understands taming a raucous crowd in a justifiably raucous environment will be a huge undertaking. “It’s a big risk, that’s why I’m terrified. I could completely fail, or people could just sit. I don’t know, but I want to take the risk. Failing is also important, you learn from failing as well as succeeding,” she said, adding, “I want to see how I can go beyond the acid, beyond the mushrooms, beyond whatever is there and touch that moment in their soul and just for seven minutes stop everything. Can you imagine if we succeed? It will be an incredible moment.”
