The House With The Ocean View
Visual Information
This piece of performance art was done in a gallery which included three wooden units about 5 feet off the ground in which the artist would live continuously for the next 12 days. What those who came to visit this gallery saw was the artist, Marina Abramovic, silent and staring, while living in three connected platforms. These platforms include a bedroom, a living room and a bathroom. The rooms are built against one of the gallery’s back walls, six feet off the ground. Each room had a ladder hanging down from it, whose steps were butcher knives instead of wood. Although Abramovic could easily drop off of the platforms without using the ladders, she includes them to show how serious she is about this piece. On of the props she included in this live performance was a metronome, which counted every second of her stay. Looking at this bizzare piece, the viewer cannot help but be intrigued by how the artist was willing to put herself through all of this for the piece. Abramovic really wanted to push herself, her body and her mind, to the extreme for this piece.
The design of the setting this piece was done in is very minimalist and dull with very little color. Each individual room was very empty, only having a piece or two of wooden furniture. The only furniture she had throughout the twelve days she lived there included a toilet, a shower, a table, a chair, and a wooded bed as well. The only color came from the different clothing she wore, which were simple long sleeve and pants duos. How this piece was designed gives it even more of a lonely, solitary feeling as if she were actually being held in a prison cell. Abramovic did everything, including shower and urinate, in front of the crowd of visitors. The only thing that she allowed herself to consume was mineral water, which meant that she was on a very long fast for 12 days. There are videos online of the piece being done for those who weren’t able to make it to the display. Various videos show that sometimes she would weep, most likely due to the physical and psychological hardship she was putting herself through. Marina Abramovic mentions in a video where she speaks about her piece, “This was an important piece for me and I just dedicate it in a way to New York after this experience after September 11th and the people become vulnerable when they understood the fragility of the life that the polarity of our existence it was really important so they’ve felt accepted and very open to this kind of work…” (Abramovic). However, sometimes she would share a smile, which greatly contrasted with the hard things happening to her body. Yet, through all of this, Abramovic constantly remained staring out into the crowd.
Contextual Information
This extreme work of performance art, titled “The House With the Ocean View,” was thought up by and performed by the famous performance artist Marina Abramovic. For this piece, Abramovic needed to follow her difficult rules she had placed on herself to complete this experience. These rules included no eating and no speaking for the entirety of the twelve days, and the only thing she had to amuse herself was a single metronome. James Westcott researches and reflects on Abramovic’s piece, “There is a white line in front of the platform which nobody is allowed to cross. Abramovic is trying to purify herself by stripping away the extraneous and by ritualizing the simplest acts” (Westcott). After fasting for an entire twelve days uninterrupted while being viewed by thousands of people in the audience, Marina Abramovic was finally done with the performance. Steven Henry Madoff from ‘The New York Times’ writes, “A big-boned, normally strapping woman, 5 foot 9 and 180 pounds, she lost 21 pounds on her diet of nothing but mineral water. She tucked into her first meal: a plastic cup of carrot juice with a chaser of a single orange-flavored Tums” (Madoff).
Above all, Abramovic’s performance includes the gallery’s audience arranged in an almost proscenium stage. John Haber writes in his critique of this piece, “Abramovic needs them to "establish an energy dialogue with the artist. " She needs them to place her at the head of the table of her barren last supper. She needs to confront them across the space of a gallery, face to face, in telescopic detail. She needs their complicity in actions that ordinarily they might not countenance. She needs them to continue her dream” (Haber). Analysis and InterpretationTo me, this live installation piece is the perfect form of absolute presence for an artist. “The House With the Ocean View” is a representation of quite literally ‘the starving artist. ’ Johannes Birringer states that “Ocean View thus also stages or creates a social scenario: the observers become self-conscious of their public act of scrutinizing this woman who takes her shower and pees in full view of an anonymous crowd” (Birringer, 68). By putting her physical and mental state through this twelve day piece, Abramovic has successfully shown us how far she is willing to push herself for her work. She has put herself in such a vulnerable state that, although is thought to be controversial to some, is highly applauded by others.
