Horrified artist was 'ready to die' after allowing spectators to do anything they wanted for six hours
Mia Williams
Featured Image Credit: Jacopo Raule/Getty Images/Daniele Venturelli/WireImage
An artist who performed a brutal social experiment - allowing people to use knives, guns, nails, and scissors - couldn't have anticipated the lengths that audience members would go to without repercussion.
In 1974, Marina Abramović set out to test the extent of human behaviour and crowd mentality, when consequences were not applicable.
The artist claimed she was 'ready to die' during the performance, in which she laid out a whole host of objects for people to use on her.
Spectators had access to 72 items, which included feathers, perfume, honey, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, a gun, and a bullet.
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At a gallery in Naples, she stood still for six hours as the torment got only worse as the hours passed by.
It was soon clear that Marina could never have predicted the extent that humans would go to.
She left a note next to the items laid out, which read: "There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired.
"Performance. I am the object... During this period I take full responsibility."
During the initial stages of the experiment, spectators were visibly hesitant, seemingly baffled as to how far they were permitted to go.
The first few hours were littered with passersby, adorning her with the flowers she'd laid out for them and planting kisses on her cheek.
Art critic Thomas McEvilley, who was present the entire time, later told press what he saw that day.
"It began tamely," he recalled. "Someone turned her around. Someone thrust her arms into the air. Someone touched her somewhat intimately. The Neapolitan night began to heat up."
After three hours, however, the atmosphere within the gallery shifted entirely and the experiment descended into a whirlwind of abuse.
While one spectator used a razor blade from the display to cut her clothes from her body until she stood nude, another allegedly used the same instrument to cut her skin.
McEvilley recalled: "Her throat was slashed so someone could suck her blood. Various minor sexual assaults were carried out on her body. She was so committed to the piece that she would not have resisted rape or murder."
Among the other horrific things inflicted upon the artist was that a knife was placed dangerously between her legs, while a gun was thrust to her head, with her own finger being placed on the trigger.
Others, however, wiped her tears and protected her, with some even fighting some of the most 'dangerous' members of the crowd.
Throughout the entire ordeal, however, Marina remained straight-faced and refused to give in to her fear.
Following the experiment, she opened up about the lessons it had taught her about human behaviour, and admitted she was prepared to sacrifice her life for the sake of knowledge.
Speaking in a video shared on the Marina Abramović Institute YouTube channel in 2016, she recalled: "I start moving. I start being myself [...] and, at that moment, everybody ran away. People could not actually confront with me as a person.
"The experience I drew from this piece was that in your own performances you can go very far, but if you leave decisions to the public, you can be killed."
And according to The Guardian, Marina said: "I was ready to die."