Marina Abramović, Ulay
City of angels / Marina Abramović, Ulay (1983, 20:09)
Marina Abramovic and Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen) worked together as an artists couple for many years. They first became known for their performances and later also for their videos, reaching from simple performance registrations to projects in which video itself was given a more central role. 'City of Angels' was the first work that Ulay and Abramovic made exclusively for video and TV, and also the first that employed more elaborate editing techniques than previous works. The camera was no longer recording from a fixed angle and the resulting images are of high quality. It was shot in the capital of Thailand, in the garden of what appears to be an ancient Buddhist monastery. With this work, Ulay and Abramovic describe the spiritual and ascetic dimensions of Eastern clture in general, and of Buddhism in particular, in a series of staged 'tableaux vivants' which are 'enacted' by monks and by the local people. The artists depict the essence of spiritual life in a number of lucid, stylized and theatrical scenes which are partly accompanied by Buddhist chanting. The timeless harmony attested to by 'City of Angels' is created by the sense of unity that exists between the location, the sound and the participants. It evokes an atmosphere of meditative concentration.
RESOURCES:
This Film is Part of the collection 40jahrevideokunst.de (2006)
RESOURCES:
This Film is Part of the collection 40jahrevideokunst.de (2006)