Marina Abramović does not need to be introduced: Serbian origins, active since the end of the 60’s, she was one of the first artists who started using body as a form of visual art. With her, art as physical and emotive experience exacerbate.
In Milano, in 1974, for the first time she launched her research at Diagramma Gallery with her work Rhythm 4. Here, the artist experimented her resistance body being naked in front of a big fan in order to breath much air as possible, until collapsing. Hard physical and psychological challenges distinguished other past works, among them the exhibition of 2002 at Lia Rumma Gallery titled Portraits 1975-2002, where sixteen screens transmitted some Abramović’s portraits from her most famous performances. She came back to Milano with her exhibition Balkan Epic that was set at Pirelli HangarBicocca and presented a selection of video-installations and performances concerning correlation with body, sex, death and Balkan culture, realized from 1997 until 2005. After she became famous in New York, in 2012 she arrived at PAC with the artwork The Abramovic Method, a project that involved both audience and artist. Public-actor was involved in this process of interacting with reality. At the same time, Lia Rumma Gallery hosted With Eyes Closed I See Happiness, a work that developed on the three floors of the gallery: videos, photos, sculptures, parts of artist’s body pierced by minerals that traced a cathartic path in search of happiness.