#clamatto

Marina Abramović

The House with Ocean View (2002)

Marina Abramović has, for over 30 years, treated her body as the primary material of her work, adapting herself to extreme circumstances, rulesets, and behaviors that ritualize everyday life and test the boundaries of physical and mental endurance. In 2002, responding to the cultural trauma reflected across New York City in the aftermath of September 11, Abramović seized upon the need to heal and used her body as a cathartic engine for spiritual and mental cleansing in the performance The House with Ocean View. For twelve days, the artist lived on three open platforms lofted five feet above the ground—one with a toilet and shower, another with a table and chair, and the last with a wooden bed—without speaking or eating, in full view of an audience that she, in turn, confronted with her presence. Each living space was outfitted with a ladder of upturned blades, creating the illusion of possible escape. The performance was a subtle yet powerful exercise in asceticism, transparency, and meditation, stripping away the world and honing in on the simple moments and gestures we all share.