Here’s a riddle: Which artist has a supernatural ability to sit still but rarely stays in one place?
The answer: Marina Abramović.
The peripatetic Serbian artist, often referred to as the godmother of performance art, is perhaps best known for “The Artist Is Present,” her 2009 solo show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where she sat in the museum’s atrium, without moving, every day during opening hours for three months. Outside of meditation or performance, however, Abramović has been on the move for much of her life. She has relocated from Belgrade to Amsterdam, from Amsterdam to Paris, from Paris to various cities in Germany—the moves go on and on. As the artist has said, “My home was wherever I went because my home was my own body.”
Abramović’s nomadic and creative life is the inspiration for her Miami Art Week collaboration with the Spanish fashion brand Massimo Dutti, which is known for outfitting cosmopolitan, independent men and women in timeless, fashionable, and functional garments. Abramović’s latest book, Nomadic Journey and Spirit of Places, is available at select Massimo Dutti stores. The tome brings together archival material (notably, reproduced in its original size) as well as poetry and written reflections, including notebooks from the artist’s hotel stays and other temporary residences. “I believe that humans need to keep moving forward, and my own life was purely nomadic,” Abramović reflects in a statement.
In Miami, the book will come to life in an exhibition, “Nomadic Journey and Spirit of Places,” at the Faena Art Project Room. On view from Dec. 5 through 8, the free-to-the-public show will offer visitors the chance to step inside Abramović’s mind. On view are drawings, poetry, photographs, and reflections collected from her four-decade career spent examining physical and mental endurance, human connection, and our relationship to the spiritual and natural worlds.
