Just recently I discovered the odyssey land. A land owned by a British Company, to be used as a platform for artists. When I first looked around it was no surprise I bumped into some people, artists, I already knew and some names I had until then only heard about. A week later I was invited to a performance done by eva and franco mattes (aka 0100101110101101.org). As part of their synthetic performance the artists were reenacting three performances by Gilbert & George, Vito Acconci and Marina Abramovic & Ulay. It was because of the Acconci exhibition in the (rl) museum where I work that I was acquainted with his work but still…of the three performances, that one made the least sense to me. Could have been sl lag problems though. To me the Abramovic & Ulay performance called Imponderabilia was in it’s simplicity and (literally) nakedness the best. Two naked bodies, one female, one male are standing in a doorway, facing eachother. Other people wanting to go through the door had to pass these two naked people, closely. And one could only pass sideways. So what will you do? who will you face? Man or woman? Do you pass at all? In the seventies, when the original performance was done in a gallery in Italy it raised enough issues I can imagine. But what was the point here? I wonder, I haven’t figured it out yet. Above some pics of the sl as well as the rl performance.
