Lecture 09/20/2011

today in lecture we went over a lot of different artists. The one we spent the most time on was Marina Abramovic. This woman is some kind of freaky. She had one performance art where she had a bunch of items on the table ranging from knives to condoms and even a gun with one bullet. We discussed how artists don't give the answers, they just ask the questions. The question i felt Marina was asking, in the performance with all the items with the sign that said she wasn't responsible for anything the people used the items to do to her, was how far people would go if they were allowed to? This was a really strong performance. It made me think... if murder were legal and had no effect on us would you do it? If whatever holy spirit said murder was okay... what we as human beings kill each other just because there's nothing wrong with it? We also watched a video with lady Gaga in it. In the video she talks about the work marina abromovic does. She talks about the earlier mentioned performance. In the video she said that people tried to cut marina and screw her but that someone always prevented them. I don't know if that were true but if it is then that performance was strong in that it shows that in the end we humans would protect on another. Marina is a very daring artist. She said herself that she doesn't do things that don't scare her. She is a strong woman who captures herself overcoming her fears through art. I feel the reason her art is so strong is because it shows this woman doing things that we would be so scared to do and she does it solely because it scares her. It's like she can overcome any amount of fear. The question, i feel she asks through her art, is how much fear can we overcome? Is fear something with the ability to limit us? Can we surmount any amount of fear? Is anything insurmountable. Through her art, i feel like i can overcome anything. She can overcome any fear she has thought of so far. Fear is probably the strongest force that limits us. With her art, Marina shows that, so far, there is no fear that she couldn't overcome; no fear that could limit her. If we can overcome any fear then we can overcome anything. I feel that is the strongest message i got from her.