Marina Abramovic, The Bridge, 1997

Marina Abramovic, The Bridge, 1997
installation view

solo exhibition with 17 video installations
and the interactive project: In-between

Lecture: Performative Body

Museum of the City of Skopje - Museum of the Revolution

Curator: Suzana Milevska



The Body as a Bridge


The graphic and topographic symbol of a bridge consists of two parallel lines placed normally to two other horisontal lines that designates two opposite banks of a river. The bridge is also an architectural object over the shortest way that enables us to overcome the natural obstacles for communication. Marina Abramovic's project is related to her understanding of her own body as a bridge, put in a function of connecting different cultures and overbridging the gap between Western rationalism and the intuitive and contemplative Eastern tradition. In her view the Balkans is where these two different cultural traditions meet.
In the work of Marina Abramovic the relation between the body and the mind is treated as a dialectical process through which the discipline of the body leads to establishing the discipline of the mind.

The project 'The Bridge' although applies the ancient symbolic and rituals engraved in the collective memory, has an imprint of a more personal, intimate experience along with questioning of the limits of her own power to control the body and make a leap in another mental state. The exhibition consisting of 17 video installations put in the space of the Museum of the Revolution before its closure was hommage to Abramovic's mother who used to be a director of such a museum in Belgrade. The main installation consisted of two videos, the two 'stars' incised in her belly installed in front of the monument devoted to the revolution victims in made of 60.000 red light bulbs signifying blood drops.