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Rhythm 0 was a six-hour work of performance art by Serbian artist Marina Abramović, shown in Studio Morra, Naples, in 1974. The work involved Abramović standing still while the audience was invited to do to her whatever they wished, using one of 72 objects she had placed on a table. These included a rose, perfume, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, nails, a metal bar, and a gun loaded with one bullet.

There was no separate stage. Abramović and the visitors stood in the same space, making it clear that the latter were part of the work. Her instructions to them were placed on the table: "I'm an object. You can do whatever you want to do with me, and I will take all responsibility for six hours." The purpose of the piece was to find out how far the public would go: "What is the public about and what are they going to do in this kind of situation?"

Abramović said the work "pushed her body to the limits." Visitors were gentle to begin with, offering her a rose or a kiss. But acting on their reduced responsibility, they progressed to cutting off her clothes, picking her up and carrying her, leaving cuts on her body, inserting rose thorns into her, and pressing the gun to her neck. When the gallery announced the work was over, and Abramović began to move again, she said the audience left, unable to face her as a person.

See also

• Endurance art

References

1. Marina Abramović, Chris Thompson and Katarina Weslien, "Pure Raw: Performance, Pedagogy, and (Re)presentation", PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 28(1), January 2006 (pp. 29–50), p. 47.
2. ^ "Marina Abramović on Rhythm 0 (1974)", Marina Abramović Institute, 2014, c. 01:00 mins.
3. Frazer Ward, No Innocent Bystanders: Performance Art and Audience, University Press of New England, 2012, p. 125.
4. ^ Abramović 2014, c. 00:00 mins.
5. Abramović 2014, c. 01:45 mins.

• Performance art