Marina Abramović and Ulay, Death Self, 1977
To create this Death self, the two performers devised a piece in which they connected their mouths and took in each other’s exhaled breaths until they had used up all of the available oxygen. Seventeen minutes after the beginning of the performance they both fell to the floor unconscious, their lungs having filled with carbon dioxide. This personal piece explored the idea of an individual’s ability to absorb the life of another person, exchanging and destroying it.
Ulay and Abramović collaborated together for over a decade, upholding an intense and intimate relationship. In 1988, the two began a spiritual journey to end their relationship; each started at opposite ends of the Great Wall of China, walked 2500 km over a span of 90 days, met in the center, and said good-bye.
(via vanstanley)
4:21 pm • 24 February 2013 • 27,537 notes
aleyma:
Luo Ping, Orchid, 1780 (source). This image was painted using the artist’s fingertip and nail, and has a poem celebrating the end of winter.
10:22 pm • 23 February 2013 • 242 notes
Michael Jackson gets a more than he bargained for during a 1974 rodeo performance in the Dome. ( photo)
(Source: mjcanyoufeelit, via fuckyeahmichaeljackson)
1:10 pm • 23 February 2013 • 473 notes
Cuddle bunnies: d & piaf.
1:06 pm • 23 February 2013
“Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence.”
— Toni Morrison (via tabularasae)
(via corrodedvessel)
12:02 am • 22 February 2013 • 6,350 notes
bombing:
Crystal Gregory - Invasive Doilies, 2011
Crocheted doilies on razor wire fences in New York City
(via textilenerd)
8:36 pm • 20 February 2013 • 10,154 notes
book-scissor-go:
Caitlin Annette Johnson “Chordates in Volume” 2011
This is the third of my excavations— I found this series of Books of Popular Science in the trash my first day in Syracuse. This one, I believe, is from 1955. I toyed for good while with a number of ways I could destroy this book. I was so taken with the typographical and diagrammatic aesthetic of the books, that I felt compelled to dig into it this way. This was also the my first attempt at a more patterened approach to excavating. I took great joy in the way the images seem to fan outward in viewing. I suppose a great of this project has to do with the tactile satisfaction of running my fingers over the gradient ridges of each raised section. I wanted this piece to foreground the visual, but I do sneak in a little of the poetic in the bottom right corner. I can’t help myself, it seems.
9:37 pm • 18 February 2013 • 4 notes
Chúc Mừng Năm Mới
This calendar that my mom bought for the new year predicts that the Year of the Snake holds many failures for me, most especially in romance.
My immediate reaction was disappointment— I’m not sure why— and it was so evident in my face that my mother felt the need to console me in her own way. ”It doesn’t matter what the fortune says. You always have to be careful.” Isn’t this sadness always there? Don’t we wish we didn’t know just how cruel we are to one another and even when we love, life is not substantial if we are left marinating in bliss? The night I read the fortune, I went home to D, looked at his face in our home, and thought, “My goodness, what excellent proof that life can be good.”
The calendar fortune’s final warning: Beware of lawsuits.
6:11 pm • 9 February 2013 • 1 note
