Status: 06.08.2021 00:00
Thinker Claudia Christophersen ponders about packing suitcases and is inspired by Marina Abramović.
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Packing suitcases is an art, a challenge, and often a disaster. The performance icon Marina Abramović has just flown to Tübingen for her current exhibition. She also had to pack her suitcase, but takes the job admirably calmly – says Claudia Christophersen.
Some indulge longingly in memories of the sea, palm trees, cappuccino. Others can look forward to it, but already have the images in their imaginations. Regardless of whether it is anticipation or joy, a view or a retrospective – traveling is always associated with a tiresome, necessary ritual: planning all eventualities far away from home, which forces us to pack our suitcases.
Marina Abramović in Tübingen
The artist Marina Abramović, who lives in New York, only underwent this ritual again when she traveled to Tübingen for her new exhibition project. A video of some sort of interview was posted on Twitter. Abramović on the plane has to be asked questions. One is what she put in her suitcase. Your answer, deeply relaxed, in a good mood and friendly: You have packed: sausage, German salami, German bread, boiled eggs, zucchini, tomatoes, also some garlic, lots of onions. All of this is the best antibiotic. So as a warning: if Abramović comes, she will bring antibiotics with her. What is she trying to tell us? Do you need strong medication in Germany? Or: When she comes to Germany, does she bring antibiotics with her, not the Delta variant?
“That self / our self” is the title of their exhibition in Tübingen. That sounds like a demanding philosophy. And it is no coincidence that the now 74-year-old and her plant have come to the city on the Neckar. Born in Belgrade, she came to Tübingen in the 1970s, tried things out, later also with her artist partner Ulay, tried to answer questions: Where are male, female soul parts in us? How do spiritual techniques work? Hypnosis or meditation?
Inspiration: The Abramović Method
Abramović now wants to pick up on this artistic phase of his work. In her art she has challenged herself and her body again and again: She whipped herself, tried her hand at being a ghost healer, snake charmer, made a pilgrimage along the Great Wall of China or sat in silence in the New York Museum of Modern Art and looked her counterpart in the eyes. That was 2010. “The Artist is Present” was the name of the mammoth performance that lasted 721 hours and made Abramović a global superstar.
Marina Abramović is constantly searching for her spiritual self. The exhibition in Tübingen tells how she does this artistically. Videos of their works, installations, and performances are projected into the rooms to fill the walls. Marina Abramović larger than life and very close to her audience. Art is being redefined here. Art as a deep experience, as an exercise in stillness, concentration and slowness. Only in this way, says Abramović, can the journey into the interior begin, the so-called Abramović method. She shows how this works in her legendary workshops in Greece, New York or digitally: Drink a glass of water in 60 minutes, walk through the forest in slow motion, mix lentils and rice grains and then count separately. Nonsense? Esoteric nonsense? Shamanism? Alchemy? Perhaps. Or maybe not. Without a doubt, all of this is great art. People who have followed Marina Abramović and done her exercises report that they have become calmer, more relaxed, and friendlier afterwards. So try it out. It might be worth it.
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