BELGRADE PERFORMANCE ART SCENE - ONE INSIGHT Two Artistic Positions Towards Forms Of Dedication
Text by Jasmin Schaitl
Image © Alexander Harbaugh | Ivana Ranisavljević, I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. Performance in occasion of the III Venice International Performance Art Week 2016
LAYERS IN THE NOW Ivana Ranisavljević (Serbia) "I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you" (2015)
Ivana Ranisavljević is one of the young artists of the co-curated section of the Venice International Performance Art Week 2016, BELGRADE PERFORMANCE ART SCENE - ONE INSIGHT, a project by Galeria G12 HUB, Belgrade. Ranisavljević presented two durational performances on two consecutive days: I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you (2015) and Am I (2016) on the second day.
In her first performance we find the artist sitting on the ground, dressed in a white, long skirt covering the white-stoned floor. Two heater-lights are filling the room with soft, warm red light. Ranisavljević carves the four mantras "I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you" in Serbian language into her torso, which results in covering the white fabric and her hands with blood. Over the course of three hours, she continuously repeats the mantras in english, while facing the audience, sitting on the floor.
The performance is inspired by and referring to the ritual for reconciliation and forgiveness of the old Hawaiian practice Ho'oponopono.
Her precision in not only pronouncing the words as words, but as something more meaningful, is transmitted through her strong presence in the moment. Instead of emptying the words through repetition, they are getting loaded each time they are spoken out, again and again.
Image © Claudia-Andreea Popovici | Ivana Ranisavljević, I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. Performance in occasion of the III Venice International Performance Art Week 2016
The modest state the artist is in feels like an offer to the audience to experience these mantras together, to give an opportunity to internalise the honest meaning of these words. Her calmness and lack of expression offers the audience to look deeper inside of her, to feel the power of the words, to feel a fullness of her words; and is inviting the audience to just be in the moment with her. Possibly knowing that not everybody is able or willing, nor time allows to follow her into this deeper understanding of the mantras.
And what her mantras – expressed with such dedication – induce, is to propose that everything one experiences is one’s own responsibility. The problem does not lie in our external realm, but in how we perceive and react towards this/our external reality. And this requires that if one wants to change this reality, we have to change ourselves, first from the inside.
Image © Alexander Harbaugh | Ivana Ranisavljević, I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. Performance in occasion of the III Venice International Performance Art Week 2016
Through carving the mantras onto her skin, not only the words she is speaking out loud, but also the inside of her body gets filled with this intention of knowing about and addressing self-responsibility.
Therefore Ranisavljević seems to set an example of taking this responsibility for her action, for her being, and shares it with the audience through offering this ritual, this time, and the required space for it.
"Am I" (2015)
In her performance Am I, Ivana Ranisavljević sits facing the audience, with printed panels containing the articles of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights hanging behind her on the wall. Through the reflection of the mirror set at an angle on the table in front of her, she reads the articles of the Declaration out loud and one by one. Progressively she sews her lips together, until she is unable to continue speaking. She remains sitting still in front of the Declaration for the rest of the performance.
In this text, I would like to focus only on the layer and the consequences that the mirror creates.
Images © Lorenza Cini | Ivana Ranisavljević, Am I. Performance in occasion of the III Venice International Performance Art Week 2016
Through the attempt to read the reflection in the mirror, the artist is standing in her own way, blocking her sight through her own body. She has to continuously reposition herself in front of the mirror to be able to see the words behind her.
The mirror pretends to be needed to read or to see the text, because it seems easier to read what is in front of you, instead of turning around. But in this case, it makes reading more difficult, and takes away the coherence of the text. It shows the confusion between dependency and necessity, due to comfort.
This is leading to the consequence that the mirror provokes: primarily revealing the process, as well as creating a separation between seeing and understanding. It seems as if the performer was going through the process of deciphering first letters, then words, and finally sentences. The meaning of the words and sentences get lost continuously because each word is separated from the text context.
Image © Lorenza Cini | Ivana Ranisavljević, Am I. Performance in occasion of the III Venice International Performance Art Week 2016
Looking at both performances of Ivana Ranisavljević there is one common objective that the artist is pursuing: to show the responsibility of each individual.
In I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you it is the offer to the audience to internalise and incorporate the mantras, to repeatedly renew the meaning of the words, which might help to reflect the observer’s own role in creating attitudes towards everyday life. The second performance Am I proposes to look at self-made layers that make our lives more difficult. Both performances lay open a situation which is real, but which we might be able to change. The starting point is within ourselves.
EXHAUSTING THE BODY WHILST CLEARING THE MIND Sara Kostić (Serbia)
Voice (2016)
Sara Kostić uses the stairways of Palazzo Mora as her performance ground, covering the space between the first and second floor by occupying and re-empowering this "non-space". For nearly three hours, Kostić continuously runs up and down the stone stairways. Her tight and flesh coloured clothes and running shoes place the focus on her body and the physical movement of stepping.
Image © Claudia-Andreea Popovici | Sara Kostić, Voice. Performance in occasion of the III Venice International Performance Art Week 2016
For three hours she continues running up and down the stairs, as fast as her energy and fitness allow her. Over time, her body has to cope with the increasing exhaustion that slow down her movement and make it more tense, difficult and painful.
Through this physical effort her breath turns deeper and louder, presenting her physical exhaustion also in an audible sense. The commitment to the physically demanding task is showing its results on body and movement. Not only through the breath but also through sweat, the exhaustion becomes visible on her clothes.
The continuation and repetition of one action allows for the space and time to observe a process, which exposes the ability and fragility of a body. It is a body that follows the power of the mind, where the first signs of exhaustion can be overpowered through dedication to the moment and the decision to continue. The mind and the body become separate, making the action one and the mental state of the artist another factor. The performance shows that the mind might take over the body and continue what conventionally would have already stopped.
Image © Lorenza Cini | Sara Kostić, Voice. Performance in occasion of the III Venice International Performance Art Week 2016
For the performance, the artist also transforms the architectural perception of the space through the use of mirrors. The placement of the mirrors facilitates the visibility of all levels on the stairway. It also opens an additional space. By placing two more mirrors on the ground in front of the other mirrors during the final part of the performance, the artist intends to create an intimate space, where she is exposing her body in a new way, and can situate herself in the moment of final exhaustion.
