Freeing the Voice

Ulay and Abramovic face each other in a kneeling position, and take turns to slap each other hard in the face. Due to the strong light shining onto their faces, they cannot see the slap coming from the dark.

A documentation of the live Action Ulay performed in Berlin in 1976. It shows step by step his arranged "art theft" of Carl Spitzweg's painting "The Poor Poet" from the Neue Nationalgalerie and his reception in commentaries and reactions from the press.

Ulay and Abramovic draw a large bow and arrow, one holding each side. The arrowhead is pointing at Abramovic's heart. The slightest movement could be fatal. Microphones on their clothes pick up their quickening heart beats and Ulay's irregular breathing

El camino entre dos puntos (The way between two points) investigates Patagonia’s tainted nature. Here, where throughout the 20th century ever enhanced methods of oil recovery, have transformed an amorphous, ambivalent and hardly populated landscape into an uncanny site of man’s supposed mastery of nature, the film traces the ways of a man, who wanders the scenes aimlessly, bound by his own implication in the menacing mechanics of oil production but drawn physically to their coevally proceeding erasure by the rough and untamed nature of this seemingly self-subsisting land.

Thirty years after their separation, performance artists Marina Abramović and Frank Uwe 'Ulay' Laysiepen (1943-2020) agree to meet, for the first time on camera, for a raw and honest conversation about their life, art and legacy.

"Naked we stand opposite each other in the museum entrance. The public entering the museum has to turn sideways to move through the limited space between us. Everyone wanting to get past has to choose which one of us to face" – Marina Abramovich

Documents four of Abramovic's solo works, exercises in which her body is the vehicle for a rigorous testing of the self — violently brushing her hair and her face, vocalizing until she can no longer breathe, intoning a stream-of-consciousness flow of memories, moving to a drumbeat until she literally drops from exhaustion.

Ulay and Abramović are standing holding a double-sided mirror between their bodies.

“Before the eyes of all, at least of those present, the naked and direct exhibitions of the body take place with all its extensions; but the naked eye of the spectators who circle is promptly doubled by the many mechanical or electronic eyes of the photographic equipment and of the 'cameras' which, with their clicks and their tenacious buzzing, form the background” Renato Barilli

Relation Work is a 1979 anthology film that compiles 14 seminal performance art pieces created by Marina Abramović and Ulay between 1976 and 1978. The compilation features the following 14 chronological performances: Relation in Space (1976) Talking about Similarity (1976) Breathing in, Breathing out (1977) Imponderabilia (1977) Expansion in Space (1977) Relation in Movement (1977) Relation in Time (1977) Light/Dark (1977) Balance Proof (1977) AAA-AAA (1978) Incision (1978) Kaiserschnitt (1978) Charged Space (1978) Three (1978)

Marina Abramović Freeing the Body was performed at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Kreuzberg, where Abramović began dancing frantically to the sounds of a bongo player. During the early part of the performance, she still has plenty of energy, and she rocks her hips and upper body vigorously to and fro. Over the course of the six hours, exhaustion sets in. Abramović falls back on a single monotonous movement, now and then visibly exerting herself in an attempt to reivigorate her body. After a final convulsive movement, in which she tries to give her all for one last time, she allows herself to collapse onto the floor and remains lying there, completely exhausted. During the performance, Abramović's head was covered by a black scarf. In this way, the audience was not distracted by Abramović as a person or personality, and attention can be focused on the body, which, due to its anonymity, has become an abstraction.

Legendary couple in performance art – Marina Abramović and Ulay – lived together for 12 years and made pioneering work as a duo. In this extraordinary double interview the artists looks back on their relationship – from their first meeting in 1975 until now.

Documentation of the 2-hour performance by Marina Abramović and Ulay, performed in 1978 at Harlekin Art in Wiesbaden. In this piece, the two artists and a live snake triangulate the performance space. By blowing across the mouths of empty bottles, Abramović and Ulay produce sounds meant to rouse the snake, attempting to charm it and alter the physical geometry of the arrangement.

In the twilight years of the Cultural Revolution, a Chinese filmmaker slowly becoming blind tours the country screening her last film to peasants. In it, the woman imagines two "alien" lovers walking from end-to-end along the Great Wall to join each other in the middle, one last time. This documentary is an adaptation of Ulay and Marina Abramovic's final collaborative project, the 1988 performance "The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk."

The starting point of Kaiserschnitt is a triangular construction. A horse stands in the centre of a large space, tied to a rope. Ulay and Abramovic are connected to the horse by means of the rope, which runs through two rings fastened to opposite walls.

'Talking about Similarity' took place in Amsterdam, on November 30th, 1976. The performance, which lasted ca. 45 minutes, contains two parts that are very different in form, but content-wise form a whole. Ulay begins, Abramovic takes over. This makes 'Talking about Similarity' the only performance in their oeuvre in which they are not both performing at the same time.