On the 30th March 1988, at opposite ends of The Great Wall of China, Marina Abramoviç and Ulay embarked on a 3 month journey, walking towards each other, to symbolize the end of their 12 year personal and professional partnership.
Marina Abramoviç, originally from Belgrade, became a prominent figure in performance art during the late 1960s, recognized worldwide for the thought-provoking messages that her artwork entailed. She gained momentum for creating pieces that broke social taboos and challenged social norms for its corresponding time and place. As her principal instrument, Marina tested the limits and endurance of her body and mind to explore vulnerability, and human connection in her artwork. In 1975 she met Ulay, another performance artist with whom she would start a long-lasting relationship which would bring about multiple popular pieces, such as The Great Wall Walk.
The Lovers was the original name for the piece that both artists started conceiving in 1981. The idea came about after reading a line from a second-century Chinese poem, Confessions of the Great Wall: “The earth is small and blue, and I am a little crack in it”. Inspired by its magnificence, the line sparked the idea for a new joined piece. As performance artists, they had always been at the center of their pieces; with their bodies, narratives and connections as the subjects. The piece would, then, talk about them as lovers, starting at opposite sides of the Great Wall who would walk towards each other to meet in the middle and marry, an ode to romanticism. In Marina’s words: “ It was an epic story of two lovers getting together after suffering.”
While the artists might have thought that walking towards each other meant going in one single direction, they ultimately realized that while there was only one path to meeting, there were many possible outcomes; and the one they had planned was not the one that unfolded.
The project was delayed for years due to bureaucratic reasons and a conflict of interest. During this time, their relationship as collaborators and partners began to deteriorate. By the time they were finally able to execute the performance, Marina and Ulay had grown distant, and the initial vision that had inspired the project seemed purposeless, in Marina’s words: “And as for our initial motivation, it was gone. We were gone”. They still decided to continue the piece, for their commitment to it and as an attempt to rewrite its meaning – now the walk would reflect the ending of their relationship. For 90 days, they walked toward one another and met in the middle for a final goodbye. But by then, Ulay had married his Chinese translator, with whom he was now expecting a child.
The symbolic interaction between the background story of The Great Wall Walk and the story it meant to convey originally, is a reflection of the very human aim to unrealistically pave our own fate, our very own idea of how our life, our relationships, should be. The original idea conveyed an analogy to how they perceived their love, their connection. Only one possible direction towards each other. Two entities, one soul. The reality proved much different from what would happen in real life. Life never goes as smoothly and linear as we hope for, and very different directions we would never imagine of, sprout. The allegory of the final piece not only transcends the evolution of the relationship and the different meaning it gave to the piece but also, plenty of experiences during the trip emerged as analogies to their real-life dynamics, human ones.
Some of these passages demonstrate a passive and uninvolved Ulay, indifferent about the spiritual meaning of the piece and the emotionality of Marina who, on the contrary, seemed to take the journey very intimately and passionately.
During the walk, Marina wrote : “I learned afterward that Ulay couldn’t stand the changes the chinese had enforced on us (…) For him the purity of our initial concept had been spoiled. I was always one to take things as they came, though that didn’t mean at all that I was happy with every part of my walk. There were many many difficulties and I had expected no less”
One day halfway through the walk, Marina received a note from Ulay: “ Walking the Wall is the easiest thing in the world”- I could have killed him. Of course, the walk was easy for him, he was traveling through the desert where the path was flat and all I was doing was climbing up and down mountains. But the asymmetry wasn’t his fault since the plan had always been for Ulay to begin his walk from the desert and for me to begin at the edge of the sea.” “And I will also confess that despite everything, at this point I still had hopes of salvaging our relationship.”
They finally met on June 27th, 1988. But instead of encountering each other walking from opposite directions, Ulay had been waiting in a scenic spot between the two temples. He had been there for three days. According to him, the spot was the perfect photo opportunity for the meeting. “I didn’t care about the photo opportunities. He had broken our concept for aesthetic reasons”. They wept as they embraced, but it was that of comrades, not lovers.
The finalization of the piece, therefore, didn´t match its newly given meaning, again closely resembling that of real life. The performance symbolized the journey of two people falling in and out of love, fighting to give meaning to a journey that had already lost it. Fighting to make symbolic a connection that was not present anymore. Years later, the Great Wall Walk is recognized as one of the most intimate performance pieces of Marina for its honesty and unique depiction of love. Because love also means letting go.
“Really this huge distance we walk toward each other where actually we do not meet happily, but we will just end- its very human in a way. Because in the end you are really alone, whatever you do.”
Marina Abramovic | Exhibited at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam March 16 – July 14 2024.
On the 30th March 1988, at opposite ends of The Great Wall of China, Marina Abramoviç and Ulay embarked on a 3 month journey, walking towards each other, to symbolize the end of their 12 year personal and professional partnership.
Marina Abramoviç, originally from Belgrade, became a prominent figure in performance art during the late 1960s, recognized worldwide for the thought-provoking messages that her artwork entailed. She gained momentum for creating pieces that broke social taboos and challenged social norms for its corresponding time and place. As her principal instrument, Marina tested the limits and endurance of her body and mind to explore vulnerability, and human connection in her artwork. In 1975 she met Ulay, another performance artist with whom she would start a long-lasting relationship which would bring about multiple popular pieces, such as The Great Wall Walk.
The Lovers was the original name for the piece that both artists started conceiving in 1981. The idea came about after reading a line from a second-century Chinese poem, Confessions of the Great Wall: “The earth is small and blue, and I am a little crack in it”. Inspired by its magnificence, the line sparked the idea for a new joined piece. As performance artists, they had always been at the center of their pieces; with their bodies, narratives and connections as the subjects. The piece would, then, talk about them as lovers, starting at opposite sides of the Great Wall who would walk towards each other to meet in the middle and marry, an ode to romanticism. In Marina’s words: “ It was an epic story of two lovers getting together after suffering.”
While the artists might have thought that walking towards each other meant going in one single direction, they ultimately realized that while there was only one path to meeting, there were many possible outcomes; and the one they had planned was not the one that unfolded.
The project was delayed for years due to bureaucratic reasons and a conflict of interest. During this time, their relationship as collaborators and partners began to deteriorate. By the time they were finally able to execute the performance, Marina and Ulay had grown distant, and the initial vision that had inspired the project seemed purposeless, in Marina’s words: “And as for our initial motivation, it was gone. We were gone”. They still decided to continue the piece, for their commitment to it and as an attempt to rewrite its meaning – now the walk would reflect the ending of their relationship. For 90 days, they walked toward one another and met in the middle for a final goodbye. But by then, Ulay had married his Chinese translator, with whom he was now expecting a child.
The symbolic interaction between the background story of The Great Wall Walk and the story it meant to convey originally, is a reflection of the very human aim to unrealistically pave our own fate, our very own idea of how our life, our relationships, should be. The original idea conveyed an analogy to how they perceived their love, their connection. Only one possible direction towards each other. Two entities, one soul. The reality proved much different from what would happen in real life. Life never goes as smoothly and linear as we hope for, and very different directions we would never imagine of, sprout. The allegory of the final piece not only transcends the evolution of the relationship and the different meaning it gave to the piece but also, plenty of experiences during the trip emerged as analogies to their real-life dynamics, human ones.
Some of these passages demonstrate a passive and uninvolved Ulay, indifferent about the spiritual meaning of the piece and the emotionality of Marina who, on the contrary, seemed to take the journey very intimately and passionately.
During the walk, Marina wrote : “I learned afterward that Ulay couldn’t stand the changes the chinese had enforced on us (…) For him the purity of our initial concept had been spoiled. I was always one to take things as they came, though that didn’t mean at all that I was happy with every part of my walk. There were many many difficulties and I had expected no less”
One day halfway through the walk, Marina received a note from Ulay: “ Walking the Wall is the easiest thing in the world”- I could have killed him. Of course, the walk was easy for him, he was traveling through the desert where the path was flat and all I was doing was climbing up and down mountains. But the asymmetry wasn’t his fault since the plan had always been for Ulay to begin his walk from the desert and for me to begin at the edge of the sea.” “And I will also confess that despite everything, at this point I still had hopes of salvaging our relationship.”
They finally met on June 27th, 1988. But instead of encountering each other walking from opposite directions, Ulay had been waiting in a scenic spot between the two temples. He had been there for three days. According to him, the spot was the perfect photo opportunity for the meeting. “I didn’t care about the photo opportunities. He had broken our concept for aesthetic reasons”. They wept as they embraced, but it was that of comrades, not lovers.
The finalization of the piece, therefore, didn´t match its newly given meaning, again closely resembling that of real life. The performance symbolized the journey of two people falling in and out of love, fighting to give meaning to a journey that had already lost it. Fighting to make symbolic a connection that was not present anymore. Years later, the Great Wall Walk is recognized as one of the most intimate performance pieces of Marina for its honesty and unique depiction of love. Because love also means letting go.
“Really this huge distance we walk toward each other where actually we do not meet happily, but we will just end- its very human in a way. Because in the end you are really alone, whatever you do.”
Marina Abramovic | Exhibited at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam March 16 – July 14 2024.
