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Fame Celebrity and Performance_2014.pdf (7.82 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Fame, Celebrity and Performance: Marina Abramović--Contemporary Art Star

Lacis, Indra K
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1396625700

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Art History.
This dissertation analyzes Marina Abramović’s rise to mainstream attention and her subsequent status as a celebrity through the prism of her major New York City performances—House with the Ocean View (2002), Seven Easy Pieces (2005) and The Artist is Present (2010)—as well as the most recent iteration of her Biography (The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, 2011/13), and her plan to build the Marina Abramović Institute in Hudson, New York. While the popular success of Abramović’s Manhattan performances is widely acknowledged, especially, for example, the fanfare that surrounded The Artist is Present, serious consideration of how these performances have sustained such a devoted fan base and why she has become an intense presence in the media remains lacking. Comparison with a diverse roster of past and present artists, including Andy Warhol, Hannah Wilke, Shirin Neshat, Chris Burden, and Tehching Hsieh, helps to formulate my investigation. I present strong links between the recurring, interactive use of the telescope and/or camera lens in Abramović’s three New York performances in relationship to the film studies concept of “intimate strangers,” the “It-effect,” and 1990s relational aesthetics. Although Abramović is avowedly not a feminist, I argue that concepts of gender performativity inform not only the reception of her work, but also her Internet and mainstream media presence. She is seen to fit the paradigm of the "executive female artist," a designation used in this instance to reconfigure collaborative performance art practices. Abramović’s status as an art star is paradoxically rooted in a multiplicity of presences and absences that exhibit both a corporeal and corporate structure.
Ellen Landau, G (Advisor)
400 p.
Art History; Performing Arts; Sociology

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Lacis, I. K. (2014). Fame, Celebrity and Performance: Marina Abramović--Contemporary Art Star [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1396625700

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Lacis, Indra. Fame, Celebrity and Performance: Marina Abramović--Contemporary Art Star. 2014. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1396625700.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Lacis, Indra. "Fame, Celebrity and Performance: Marina Abramović--Contemporary Art Star." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1396625700

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1396625700
18,811
© 2014, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.