Marina Abramović | Cleaning the Mirror (1995)

re-performance: 6 hours with Martha Pasakopoulou

This is the first time that this work will be re-performed since its first iteration in 1995, when it was performed only for video. In Cleaning the Mirror (1995), Abramović sits with a skeleton on her lap, next to her a bucket with soapy water. With her right hand, she vigorously brushes the different parts of the skeleton. By being cleaned, the colour of the skeleton becomes lighter, whereas the greyish dirt which once coated the bones starts to cover Abramović herself so that the boundaries between the actor and the “object” acted upon start to blur; the dead and the living start to intermingle. As for Abramović, the skeleton metaphorically represents “the last mirror we will all face”; death and temporality are the major themes addressed in this work.