Couple meets in the middle of the Chinese wall and separates

Couple meets in the middle of the Chinese wall and separates

The Chinese wall inspired countless works of art in its over 2000-year history. One of the best known is "The Great Wall Walk", an impressive 90-day performance, in which the loving marina "> marina" Abramović and Frank Uwe Laysiepen (the late German artist, known as Ulay), moved to each other from opposite ends of the monument.

The trip to the big wall

Abramović began in the east on the so-called “dragon head”-where the big wall tends into the Bohai bay, like a dragon that drinks from the sea-while Ulay started more than 3000 miles far in the west in the Gobi desert. It was originally planned that they would meet and marry in the middle under a full moon in the outback of Australia. However, the approval of the Chinese authorities lasted for eight years, and at that time her romantic relationship, despite the global fame and success as a performance duo, was broken under infidelity, jealousy and a failed three. Nevertheless, both did not want to give up and went on their trip in March 1988.

a farewell in large love

"We both decided that we have to deal with new circumstances what our separation means ... (we had to) say goodbye," said Abramović in a video call of the Modern Art Museum (MAM) in Shanghai, where she opened her first museum exhibition in China this week. "Great love," she added, includes everything: "Love, hatred, disappointment and forgiveness. We explore all of this."

The exhibition "Transforming Energy"

The 77-year-old Serbian artist shows in her new exhibition " Marina Abramović: Transforming Energy "Interactive works of art that are inspired by her trip along the large wall, and over 1200 Unseen pictures that were taken during their hike.

art and memories

The photographs are projected onto the walls of the museum and are divided into four categories, which the curator and artistic director of the MAM, Shai Baitel, as "preparation and beginning of the hike, encounters with locals, hiking at the wall and meetings with ulay as well as staged experiments and landscapes" grouped. Baitel was enthusiastic about the multitude of unpublished film negative, which Abramović had in her camp: "It is a treasure for a curator or anyone who works in art or art history; what has not yet been digitized exists in large quantities."

The encounters with locals

Abramović is shown in impressive moments of the hike through breathtaking, wild parts of the wall, which are surrounded by mountains, crumbled ruins and varied terrain. She felt clear isolation, but this loneliness offered space for viewing and reflection. "I was a woman who went alone ... without a man, without children, without speaking the language," she recalls.

spiritual discoveries

The large wall that stretches over northern China was built to keep intruders away. But for the locals with whom Abramović spoke, it was less about military history, but rather about an earthly representation of dragons and the Milky Way. "I realized that the old stories were directly connected to the minerals that I ran through," said the artist at a press conference in Shanghai.

interactive art and digital detoxification

The extensive exhibition in Shanghai enables visitors to keep crystal -based objects, a reference to this aspect of their trip. The three-storey exhibition also includes "permanent" installations, such as a custom-made metronome, which only makes a blow every 24 seconds, and an interactive work of art that invites visitors to open and close a door very slowly without going on or out.

reunion after many years

Three months after their departure, the paths of the two finally crossed in Shenmu, in the province of Shaanxi. Ulay had found an "incredible, meaningful" place between two temples and waited for her. Abramović needed another three days to reach him. "I wanted to kill him," she joked. "I had absolutely devoted myself to this concept ... You meet in the middle, regardless of whether it is a better photogenic place or not." After an emotional reunion, the two separated again without seeing themselves for 22 years.

an unexpected end

In 2010, Ulay Abramović surprised during her performance "The Artist Is Present" in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where she was in front of the visitors and kept her gaze in silence. "I didn't know that he would sit down with me," she recalled the moment. "My whole life passed my eyes and I started crying. It was a very strong moment." The relationship between the two ended peacefully when they went to the same quiet meditation retreat in India six years later, despite a legal dispute over common works.

memories of a great love

"You see, the universe has its own way," said Abramović and added that they had found space there to really forgive themselves. "He is no longer here; I miss him terrible, because it would have been incredible if he had been here to celebrate this exhibition and memory of the epic work."

" Marina Abramović: Transforming Energy " can be seen in Mam Shanghai until February 28, 2025.