​​​​​​​The Greatest Female Performers Alive​​​​​​​

A series of posters on six famous performances made by female artists

Marina Abramovic

Yoko Ono

Rebecca Horn

Janine Antoni

Kimsooja

Sun & Sea (Marina)

The main idea of the project is to look at these internationally acclaimed artists as females, to see their bodies as tools of power and their ideas as strong messages, to honor the legendary performances as well as to revisit them within a more up to date angle. These works have evidently been conceived as statements per se, although today they bring up even more subjects for discussion, especially, put altogether.

Cutouts on black paper, ink, colapen

B/w digital print

June 2021

LIPS OF THOMAS, 1975/ 1993

In the performance Marina Abramovic undertakes a range of actions that push her physical limits to an extreme and finally result in the transgression of bodily boundaries. She starts off with eating 1 kilo of honey, followed by the consumption of 1 litre of red wine. Then, she breaks the wine glass with her hand. The actions become more violent and masochistic, including, in an image that has become iconic in the history of performance art, cutting a five-pointed star into her stomach with a razor blade.

THE CUT PIECE, 1964

In Cut Piece—one of Yoko Ono’s early performance works—the artist sat alone on a stage, dressed in her best suit, with a pair of scissors in front of her. The audience had been instructed that they could take turns approaching her and use the scissors to cut off a small piece of her clothing, which was theirs to keep. Some people approached hesitantly, cutting a small square of fabric from her sleeve or the hem of her skirt. Others came boldly, snipping away the front of her blouse or the straps of her bra. Ono remained motionless and expressionless throughout, until, at her discretion, the performance ended.

PENCIL MASK, 1972

Strapped around the face, this mask transforms the wearer’s head into an instrument for drawing. Horn has described wearing it: ‘All pencils are about two inches long and produce the profile of my face in three dimensions...I move my body rhythmically from left to right in front of a white wall. The pencils make marks on the wall the image of which corresponds to the rhythm of my movements.’ The spike-like pencils make this one of Horn’s more threatening works.

LOVING CARE, 1993

In Loving Care, Antoni mopped the floor of the gallery with her hair soaked in Loving Care hair dye “Natural Black.” The artist’s actions conjured up the expressive marks of Abstract Expressionist painting, linking them to the chore of mopping. As she claimed the space, the audience was slowly backed out of the gallery.

A NEEDLE WOMAN, 1999 - 2001

A Needle Woman is a performance video artwork created by artist Kimsooja. The videos projected simultaneously that comprise Kimsooja's A Needle Woman (1999) presents the artist wearing precisely the same clothes, standing precisely the same way, and, it would seem, at the same time of day in various urban environments.

Imagine a beach – you within it, or better: watching from above – the burning sun, sunscreen and bright bathing suits and sweaty palms and legs. Tired limbs sprawled lazily across a mosaic of towels. Imagine the occasional squeal of children, laughter, the sound of an ice cream van in the distance. The musical rhythm of waves on the surf, a soothing sound (on this particular beach, not elsewhere). The crinkling of plastic bags whirling in the air, their silent floating, jellyfish-like, below the waterline. The rumble of a volcano, or of an airplane, or a speedboat. Then a chorus of songs: everyday songs, songs of worry and of boredom, songs of almost nothing. And below them: the slow creaking of an exhausted Earth, a gasp.

Sketches to the series ended up becoming an independent poster:

Learn more about the project https://my.readymag.com/edit/2833235/preview/