65. Ulay/Marina Abramović (Vital Art) [1976.]

The work Art Vital from 1976 belongs to the earliest and most important period of joint action by Marina Abramović and Ulay, and represents a kind of manifesto of their artistic and life project. The work did not originate as a classic gallery poster, but was printed in Amsterdam on coated paper in August 1976 as an independent artistic proclamation and a public announcement of their new way of life and work. The title Art Vital signifies a concept and artistic manifesto that Abramović and Ulay defined in 1976, at the beginning of their twelve-year collaboration and joint nomadic life in a traveling Citroën van. The manifesto advocated ideas of constant movement, direct contact, the rejection of institutional limitations, taking risks, and exposure to chance, and has become one of the key programmatic texts of European performance and conceptual art of the 1970s. What gives this copy particular importance is that it is a signed and dedicated copy with the signatures of both artists. Works jointly signed by Marina Abramović and Ulay are an important testimony to their artistic and life symbiosis.

Dimensions

width 99 cm, height 57 cm

Description

offset, signed and dedicated lower right, in black marker, "Only for, Anne et M. George, Marina Abramović, Ulay (agreed)

Research information

A version of the work is recorded and reproduced in the exhibition catalogue Posters / works of the artist, Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, March 1978, under cat. no. 3, titled Art Vital.

Dating

1976.

PROVENANCE

Historical collection of Anne Dagbert and George Dagbert, to whom the work is personally dedicated; signed and dedicated example of the work from the period of cohabitation and artistic collaboration of Marina Abramović and Ulay.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

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