Marina Abramovic at the Lisson Gallery

Abramovic is one of the most famous female artists of the 21st century. Her performances from the 1970s and 80s are famous for their extremity. In 'Art must be beautiful, Artist must be beautiful' a work foundational to the women's activist art of the 1970s, Abramovic brushes and combs her own hair with varying degrees of violence whilst chanting the title of the piece. At one point she pulls in different directions quickly, catching and knotting her hair, her declarations quickening in pace and anger. This work, which connotes on a number of levels, questions the nature of beauty in art, the woman in art and the woman artist. Making herself the subject she interrogates the position of the woman's body to be perfected, what happens when it is not the man performing this action but the woman herself, when she takes the role of artist. As such does the woman artist have to violate herself to place the woman as the centre of the artwork?

This work features in the Lisson Gallery's exhibition of Abramovic's work. Split across two sites the exhibition includes the complete collection of Rhythm works (10, 5, 2, 0, 4) along with works with Ulay in the main gallery and the more recent 'Back to Simplicity' series in the second space.

This splitting was interesting; from the angry, emotive and disturbing work in the first space to the large scale photographs, films with similar photographic stillness and marble pillows for visitors to line-up their 'sex, heart and head', there was a definite shift. A case of maturity and maturing work perhaps? The press release would agree suggesting the work illustrates Abramovic's desire for a simpler life. However it is not the specific meaning of the piece that really struck me, but the difference, the shift from historicised feminist-activist work to those high resolution images of Abramovic holding a lamb as if it were a baby or lying still, dressed in white underneath an incredibly mythic looking tree. Shocking maybe not, but definitely bambooziling. No bodies on the verge of mutilation, no pushing the limits of the artist making artwork beyond consciousness just concentration, animals and lush natural settings.

There could be suggestion of the woman and nature, a redefinition of what it means to reengage with the living planet after one has tested the body and the definitions placed upon (gender, profession, etc). This seems to be a conclusion too easy to draw and it is the uncomfortability of making this or any certain definition which is provocative. The difference between the works resonates between the two settings as if splitting work that is labelled contemporary into two; the near-past and the too-near-present/future. Seeing either space alone would not be as affective as seeing the two combined-at distance, the works play off each other, jarring temporalities and contexts, juxtaposing the smooth, youthful face of anger and activity with the older face of passive wisdom. This interplay between sites and works marks the strength of the exhibition, no matter what other conclusions maybe drawn.

Frieze Art Fair, Regents Park

So, my first post from London and what more appropriate than Frieze Art Fair?

Today, as part of my course I went to Frieze Art Fair. Entering the fair my tutor's question 'What is the contemporary' rang loud, mainly because we had one hour to find a work that could in some way answer such a question.

Not so hard? Maybe not, after all anything considered with contemporary eyes could be seen as such. Is contemporary all about interpretation then? Well thats another question, one at a time.

No the question rang with resonances of time, distance, difference, light/ darkness, hierarchy and generation. There was certainly alot of that yet the hour of searching gave nothing to me but endless references to mass culture, pastel colours and art world glitz. Intimidating certainly.

Last minute I selected a work, with a rather obvious title for our Agamben-related seminar, 'The Future Chasing Past the Present' by Gabriel Lester. The work consisted of a production line belt onto which minitaure clusters of trees, people and trees had been stuck. As the production line rotated lights shone onto three of it's sides. In a darkenned side room the light cast shadows of the rotating mini-verse. Presenting ages systematically it was abeautiful piece full of delicate intricacies and literal meaning to Giorgio Agaemben's 'What is Contemporary?' essay.

Yet it was only later in my confused meanderings around stalls that I noticed another work by Neil Beloufa. Entitled "Documents are flat" the work is composed of a video framed by an installation. The installation includes a wooden structure with built-in seat and viewing space. But this is no minimalist framing it is adorned with corners of frames and images, its structures are decorated with scraps of building fabric, previously functional, here they are reduced to decoration. Beloufa's piece is focused around found materials and documents, re-using and re-applying them in this new contingent, broken-up context. The film, which forms the centre to the viewing structure is made of accounts of house lived in by terrorists that was paradoxically made of glass. As neighbour's accounts try to reason out the paradox the film traces figures, bodies to the narrative voices, walking through a paper reconstruction of house. The document which is flat, made of paper is made visual, the voices held in its words are reanimated by appropriated voices, the previously-recounted and imaginary perceived space is occupied by strange bodies.

The information offered comments; 'This improbable and irresolvable anecdote encourages the characters to invent images of an event given by media coverage, without actual images or facts, and thus missing the main issue.'

Thus this remembered-document house is made tangible, not through reconstruction but through video which cuts between images of it.

We can't fully conceive of the document-house in the same way that the space of the installation is unfathomable, it does not make sense, it hangs in the air picking up the excerpts of narrative truncated by the film. joints are overdetermined by excess of support, whereas as others are left empty, some pieces are painted vibrant colours while others are left as chipboard. The corrugated plastic roof is doubled on one half and not on the other.

So why is this contemporary? Its playfulness, its use of document, of truth of narrative of inclusion and exclusion. Breaching the topic of terrorism. Its wit, its beauty and ugliness. Its craftmanship and lack of it. But mainly because of the many questions it asks and leaves unanswered.