Marina Abramović: The Cleaner

Radical, controversial and highly respected, Marina Abramović is famous for her ground-breaking performances in which she continues to probe, challenge and transcend her own physical and psychological limits. Personal experience and responsibility are key to the artist’s striking work, which deals with memory, pain, loss, trust and endurance. Equally central are time, the experience of its passing and the way she uses her own body.

The Abramović Method of concentrating and mobilizing one’s own strength to achieve maximum tolerance and openness of dialogue is practiced in workshops all over the world. The artist addresses fundamental existential questions that affect and touch the viewer with great immediacy. True to her conviction, “A powerful performance will transform everyone in the room,” she questions hierarchies and focuses on individual and collective experience.

The artist’s major European retrospective can now be seen in the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, the only venue in the German-speaking world, and presents works from all periods of Abramović’s multifaceted career—from the (very) early years, solo and with Ulay, to the present. Films, photographs, paintings and objects, installations and select archival material shed light on the thematic and conceptual breadth of the artist.

The intense experience of the display is complemented by a series of:

Reperformances and participatory works
For the entire length of its run, the exhibition will present a series of live reperformances, a.o. Imponderabilia (1977), Luminosity (1997) and Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful (1975) of legendary performances.

Visitors will also be able to experience the Abramović Method directly as they try their hand at two major participatory works. From June 12 until 24 the iconic performance Room with an Ocean View (2012) will be reperformed during the opening hours of the exhibition without a pause.

For the complete reperformance program, please go to www.bundeskunsthalle.de.

Rein Wolfs, director of the Bundeskunsthalle, says, “Marina Abramovic is such an immensely important artist that a major retrospective in Europe was long overdue. Thanks to the presentation of a number of reperformances throughout the run of the show, The Cleaner is more than just a simple exhibition, it is an immersive, all-embracing experience of great art historical significance.”

An exhibition of the Bundeskunsthalle in cooperation with the Moderna Museet, Stockholm (Curator Lena Essling), and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk (Curator Tine Colstrup)

Curator: Susanne Kleine
Director: Rein Wolfs
Managing Director: Patrick Schmeing

Head of Corporate Communications/Press Officer
Sven Bergmann
T +49 228 9171 204 / presse [​at​] bundeskunsthalle.de

Current exhibitions:
Germany is not an Island
Contemporary Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany
Acquisitions 2012–2016
March 8 to May 27, 2018

Soon to come:
Nazca – Divine Drawings
Archaeological Discoveries from Southern Peru
May 10 to September 16, 2018

The Playground Project
Outdoor
May 31 to October 28, 2018

The Bundeskunsthalle is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.