Saturday October 7 was a beautiful warm day. High of 24!
Our plan was to walk along the river, cross over the Waterloo bridge, make our way past Covent Garden, go to an exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts, grab a bite to eat and then head to the Harold Pinter Theatre to see Mark Rylance in Dr. Semmelweis.
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| Cool architecture on the way--- there seems to be as many cranes in London, as in Toronto! |
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| Another view |
We walked to the river and the Bankside neighbourhood. We realized that we were going to pass by the British Film Institute (BFI) building where the London Film Festival has its headquarters. Just before we got there, we stopped at a pop-up immersive exhibit by Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin (from Winnipeg), which had been commissioned by BFI London Film Festival. It was in a small room of a building, entitled
Haunted Hotel, A Melodrama in Augmented Reality. We were handed an iPad and told to place it in front of an image, which then morphed into other images.
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| Outside the building |
We picked up a programme (the Festival runs from October 4-15). A number of films had already shown at TIFF, but there are some that are just playing in London. We inquired about screenings, but most films are sold out. The films are showing at a number of venues, not just the BFI building. We visited the busy gift shop.
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| Cut out of Agnes Varda at the gift shop |
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| Inside the BFI building |
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| Poster |
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| Buzzy, busy |
We continued our walk across the Waterloo bridge.
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| View of Millennium bridge and other side of the Thames |
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| Looking back to the east end |
We walked through the Covent Garden building--- it is much too crowded. However, the streets around Covent Garden are full of great stores, cafés and restaurants. It seemed like everyone was out shopping in London on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. We stopped at Paul Smith's first store in London on Floral Street. Allan did some retail therapy.
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| Allan with his great sweater purchase |
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| We passed the TinTin store-- great message |
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Outside the London Graphic Centre
We made our way to the London Fabrique, the Stockholm bakery chain, where we had so many delicious cardamon and cinnamon buns. Similar look and menu. The buns and coffee were very good. |
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| Fabrique |
We finally got to the Royal Academy of Arts at 4:30 p.m. to see the Marina Abramović exhibit. Luckily the gallery is open until 6:00 p.m. I don't think either of us had been to the Royal Academy of Arts before. It is based in Burlington House on Piccadilly. Founded in 1768, it is an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects.
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Signage at the gallery.
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Marina Abramović was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) in 1946, She studied as an academic painter in Belgrade and Zagreb from 1965-1972. From the late 1960s, she engaged with the era's radical political and artistic ideas, which expanded the definition of art beyond traditional media such as painting and sculpture. Beginning in the 1970s, she created work at the forefront of the emerging discipline of performance art. Abramović has consistently tested the boundaries of her own physical and mental endurance. While best known for her performances, she is a genuinely multidisciplinary artist, embracing photography, video, installation and sculpture. This is the largest exhibit of her work in the UK to date.
Some of the initial rooms had pictures and descriptions of her performances, a number of which comprise simple actions sustained over long durations. During The Artist is Present (2010), Abramović sat for three months at a table in the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Members of the public were invited to sit silently opposite the artist for a duration of their choosing, their gazes meeting. Footage of the sitters showed their charged and highly emotional reactions speaking to the basic human need for connection.
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| Details of The Artist is Present--75 days duration; 1545 visitors. |
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| Room where The Artist is Present, 2010 took place. |
There was a room entitled: Communist Body. Abramović was born in communist Yugoslavia. Her parents had been partisan fighters in WWII and, feted as heroes, were rewarded with coveted state jobs. Abramović often weaves elements of her personal biography into her work. The five-pointed star appears in many early pieces. In Rhythm 5 (1974), this took the form of a wooden star structure which was set alight as she lay within it. The resultant dense smoke was suffocating and caused her to lose consciousness. The public didn't react as she was already lying on the ground. When flames touched her leg and she still didn't react, two people carried her out.
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| Description of the performance |
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The burning star with Marina Abramović lying inside the star.
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Abramović left Belgrade in 1976 but continued to feel a close tie to the region. Her perception of the Balkan identity as bound up in extremes of violence and eroticism often influenced her later work. At the Venice Biennale in 1997, she presented Balkan Baroque in response to the decade's violent conflict in the Balkans. Part of the performance involved a futile attempt to wash clean a pile of bloodied bones. Her performance caused a sensation and she was awarded the Golden Lion.
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| Story behind Balkan Baroque, 1997 |
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| First part of video telling folk tale |
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| Wildly dancing- pile of bones in the foreground |
Her father, Vojin Abramović passed away in 2000. In memory of him, she created The Hero (2001), combining her personal biography with a wider reflection on the historic events her father had lived through. In it, the artist sits on a white horse while the Yugoslavian national anthem is sung.
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| The Hero, 2001, video and vitrine (below) containing objects that belonged to Vojin Abramović. |
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| Vitrine contained her father's medals, old photos and ID cards. |
In 1975, Abramović met fellow artist Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen) (1943-2020) , a German artist and the two experienced an instant emotional and artistic connection. Together they made work that considered the relationship between the self and the other.
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| Ulay/Marina Abramović, AAA-AAA, 1978 |
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| Ulay/Marina Abramović, Relation in Time, 1977 : In a given space. First part Performance. Without public. We are sitting back to back, tied together by our hair, not moving. |
There were also a number of live performances in the galleries by individuals cast and trained by the Marina Abramović Institute. In June, 1977, Abramović and Ulay performed Imponderabilia at the Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna in Bologna, where they stood as naked 'living doors' through which visitors had to pass to enter the gallery. After three hours, police interrupted the performance on grounds of obscenity. This performance was reenacted at the Royal Academy Exhibit. It was a very narrow doorway where a nude man and woman stood that we had to pass through to get to the next exhibit room.
On June 27, 1988, Abramović and Ulay met on the Great Wall of China, having walked towards each other for ninety days from opposite ends. They had originally planned to marry at this meeting point, but by the time Chinese authorities had granted them permission for the performance their relationship had deteriorated. Instead, the work became a ritualized separation, formally ending their personal and creative partnership.
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| Marina Abramović/Ulay The Lovers, Great Wall Walk 1988 (Performance 90 days) video |
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| The Lovers, Great Wall Walk, Wall Rubbings, 1988 |
There was a note from Abramović near a video that on March 2, 2020 after a long battle with cancer, Ulay passed away. Marina said that she "would like to dedicate these images of our time together to his memory".
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| Some lovely photos of Ulay and Marina |
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| In love... |
There was a room, where one could take part in the exhibit.
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| Green Dragon, 1989. Oxidized copper and green quartz. Instructions for the public: Lie on the copper bed. Rest your head on the mineral pillow until its energy is transmitted. Allan getting energised. |
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| Shoes for Departure, 1991/2015, Quartz crystal. Abramović's instructions for the public were: Enter the shoes with bare feet. Eyes closed. Motionless. Depart. I only read the notes after I left the shoes. |
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| Four Crosses, 2019 |
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| Portal, 2022 |
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| The Spirit in Any Condition Does Not Burn, 2011 |
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| The Current, 2017, performance for video |
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| Stromboli, 2002, Performance for video |
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| Carrying the Milk from the Kitchen, 2009, video |
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| The Levitation of Saint Therese from The Kitchen, 2009, video |
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| Chair for Human Use with Chair for Spirit Use (6), 2012 |
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| Golden Mask, 2009, video |
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| Posters in the gift shop |
It was a very comprehensive and intense exhibit. Abramović definitely pushes the boundaries of performance art.
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| We stopped for a short visit at Fortnum and Mason- wow was that place hopping!! I hadn't been there for years. We bought some chocolate bars. Established in 1707 at this Piccadilly location. |
As we were getting short of time, we had a quick bite to eat at the Japan Centre, just across the street from the Harold Pinter Theatre. The play started at 7:30 p.m. and was 2 hours and 20 minutes with one intermission. It turned out to be the closing evening of its run.
Dr. Semmelweis is based on the true story of the 19th century doctor and campaigner for antiseptic practices. The play was based on an original idea by Mark Rylance and written with Stephen Brown. It explores the life of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865), a Hungarian doctor who worked in 19th century maternity wards. His groundbreaking practices in antiseptic procedure saved thousands of lives and might have saved more had his findings been recognized by the medical community. But he was doubted and disbelieved, and died in an asylum without due recognition. His story became a tragedy of almost Shakespearean proportions in the hands of Rylance, who plays a flawed character in his unbending sense of right.
The production featured a number of dancers and musicians that take us inside Semmelweis's mind, from his outbursts of anger and his final unravelling. The dancers also play the women he has been unable to save due to childbirth fever. The play explores why some people are lauded as pioneers and others are cast as outsiders. In the case of Semmelweis, his single-minded zeal to save lives and his gruff manner gets him in trouble with his hospital bosses and the medical establishment. He was not very tactful and publicly berated people who disagreed with him. He had no sense of how to get his message across without alienating people. His plea for fellow doctors to "wash your hands" has a contemporary ring, even though the play was written before the pandemic.
Rylance was just fantastic in the role and the supporting cast, dancers and musicians were also excellent. The production featured a rotating stage and even the theatre stalls were used in some scenes. Nothing beats London theatre at its finest. We took the tube back to Borough station just a few minutes from the apartment.
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