Alphabe Thursday … U is for Marina Abramović and Ulay

There have been performance artists that have used walking as their preferred medium; some have been dramatic, ambitious and extreme.  Marina Abramovic and Ulay for instance, were radical performance artists, she from Yugoslavia and he from East Germany.  In 1976 they began to collaborate in a series in what they called ‘relationship’ works.  They were interested in testing both their own and the audiences’ physical and psychic boundaries with performance that threatened all emotional senses.  Among their influences were shamanism, alchemy, Tibetan Buddhism and other esoteric traditions.  After years of pushing the boundaries in 1988 Abramović and Ulay decided to make a spiritual journey which would end their relationship. They began their final walk from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China; Marina from the east by the sea and Ulay from the west in the Gobi desert.  Three months later they met up in a mountain pass near Shenmu in Shaanxi Province among Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist temples. It was noted that this last performance ended as their first performance; where they strode towards each until they collided.