Marina Abramović came to talk to the students of the Royal Academy Schools this evening. She started by showing a picture of her great uncle, who was a patriarch of the Orthodox church, and her parents, her father who was a devoted communist and her mother who was Director of the Museum of the Revolution and Art in Belgrade. She fell in love with Ulay, a performance artist in Amsterdam (she left out the fact that she had already been married) and they lived and worked together until she was 40.
I was left with the strongest possible impression that she is a high priest herself – of a cult devoted to silence and contemplation, the turning inwards to experience, performance art as a version of what Simeon Stylites practised so successfully, the flagellation of the body as a cure for the ills of society.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
Methinx i prefer simple simeon…
My inaccurate spelling of the saint has now been corrected… Charles
Extremists/Outlaws like Abramovic and the Stylites are fascinating, partly the spooky “flagellation” but also the confusing message. For the Stylites, was their principal purpose to get physically nearer to God? In so many ways they set themselves up for a fall, removed from society yet acting ON society, being a living icon or at the least an exemplar…literally for St Simon, always being looked up to….if they fall do we feel relief.- They were too self important and deserved it.- Or do we want them to “succeed” on a path we dread to follow…
It was particularly an image of Abramović lying on a bed of candles which made me think that she’s a modern version of the medieval saints – and the weeping of the audience. Charles