Issue Eleven - Design Note
The Kitchen V, Carrying the Milk Marina Abramović 2009
Color video projection with sound on DVD, 12 minutes 43 seconds loop. Edition 5/5. Dimensions variable with projection.
The Kitchen V, Carrying the Milk is part of a series of photographs and videos set in an abandoned kitchen of a Spanish orphanage. Run by Carthusian nuns, who, at one point, fed 8,000 children a day during Franco's reign. Abramović's work is an homage to St. Teresa of Avila who wrote of her experiences of levitation. She believed her levitations were chastisement from God and prayed for them to stop. The loss of physical control and subsequent anger at divine forces serve as a symbolic foundation for the collection.
The setting of a kitchen also takes on a deep autobiographical context as the artist examines her relationship to home, identity and nostalgia. Once the "center of her universe" the kitchen of Abramović's grandmother fondly served as the base of family life and lore. The struggle to retain the nourishment derived from memories and the attempt at physical containment are powerfully evident.
Still frame photograph taken at The Palm Springs Museum of Art by The Wax Paper
This issue, the last of volume three, is also our first produced entirely under quarantine. In this time of great absence, our memories of shared experiences and bearing creative witness have become more dear. Our front cover documents one of our last such encounters, a viewing of Marina Abramović’s, Kitchen V, a near life-size projected video. In it, the artist stands center, holding steady a bowl of milk. The placidity, unremarkable at first, becomes energized as her ability to keep the bowl level falters and the milk begins to gently spill, belying the silent struggle at hand. A primary sensation for the viewer, common in Abramović’s durational work, is the presence of tension. Not simply the consciousness of discomfort (performer and viewer alike) but a contemplation of its spectrum, from stoic resilience through the ecstasy of resolve into a spiritual rise and release. The stillness captured in our single frame echoes the quiet of the performance, yet presents another absence, that of the audience. Abramović has acknowledged that the viewer is essential to the completion of a piece. And now, as an audience, we can clearly feel that reciprocal need.
The recent passing of Frank Uwe Laysiepen further intertwines these notions of nostalgia and loss. Working under the name, Ulay, he is often remembered as the long-time personal and performative partner of Abramović. A conceptual pioneer in his own right, Ulay’s work over the decades will soon be presented at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Identity as defined by gender and place, either adopted or denied, served as a framework to Ulay’s exploratory blend of body art, performance, and photography. The “auto-Polaroid” printed on our back cover, and included in the exhibition, is part of the artist’s extensive experimentation with the medium. The intimacy of such self-documentation is recognizable, but is want for the connection present when viewed in person. Both Ulay and Abramović’s work challenges the passive role of the viewer and serves as a meditation on the power of witness at a time when the audience is cannot be present.
Issue Eleven is our last to be visually themed around Persian and Islamic design. The illustrations that frame these pages are inspired by the carved walls found in the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection and the tile work adorning the exterior of a mosque in Los Angeles.