The Serbian artist Marina Abramovic presents her first exhibition in Asia, Transforming Energy, at the Shanghai Museum of Modern Art. The immersive exhibition invites visitors to participate in interactive works, encouraging reflection and technological disconnection.
Lying in bathtubs filled with dried flowers, finding yourself with long hair above your head… The exhibition in Shanghai by Serbian artist Marina Abramovic, her first in Asia, offers a “completely immersive” experience.
Marina Abramovic, 77, is globally renowned for her performances, such as her 90-day-long walk on the Great Wall of China in 1988, dedicated to art.
Transforming Energy, which runs until February 28, 2025, at the Shanghai Museum of Modern Art, is the largest exhibition ever organized by Marina Abramovic. It is “very different from all the exhibitions that have ever been designed” and “very radical,” the artist had promised.
“Every element of this exhibition invites our audience to participate,” explains Shai Baitel, the exhibition’s curator, to AFP, adding: “The artwork is incomplete if the public does not connect with it.”
For the work Counting the Rice, for example, visitors, seated at small tables, must separate white rice grains from black ones in a small mound, count them, and write the result on a piece of paper that they take home with them.
On another floor of the museum, they are invited to put away their phones—a difficult experience for some Chinese visitors often glued to their screens—and wear noise-canceling headphones while repeating gestures, such as opening and closing a door.
“I really want there to be a technology detox in this show,” Marina Abramovic explained to AFP.
“Incredible”
“The scope and perspective of her work are incredible. I think she is brilliant,” says visitor Nikki Yang, 43, who had already seen her work in New York. “I never thought she would exhibit in China one day,” she adds.
Another visitor, Yang Shangxuan, 24, said he was particularly struck by a piece inviting spectators to stand in the middle of a structure made of crystals, in a room filled with fragrant wood chips.
“I closed my eyes to feel the energy of the crystals, and even though I didn’t sense it, I felt very relaxed,” explains the young man, who had discovered the artist at school.
In addition to dozens of new works, the exhibition also revisits her walk on the Great Wall of China through more than a thousand photos and videos.
Marina Abramovic became known for bold works that push boundaries and erase the line between her body and her art, often involving the participation of the public.
In 2010, seated in a chair at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, which dedicated a retrospective to her, she saw more than 1,500 visitors pass by over several months.
In another of her most famous performances, Rhythm 0 in 1974, she sat motionless in a chair for six hours while the public had 72 objects at their disposal to “use” on her—including flowers, knives, and a gun—at their discretion.
Some members of the public eventually became violent, realizing they could act with impunity.
With AFP
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