Retreat in silence and humility. Piano Igor Levits and artist Marina Abramovich make a collaboration in London / day
In this project, which will take place on April 24 and 25 in the Queen’s Elizabeth Hall of London Art Center SouthbankMarina Abramovich has taken on the director’s function. Work Vexations The performance is always a test of the pianist – the audience will be able to experience this performance in full length or partially (one hour tickets available).
Igor Levits will perform this composition for the first time, but fans of his talent remembers that in May 2020 the pianist played Vexations In a special online concert to focus on the challenges that artists encountered during the first Covid-19 pandemic during the Lokdaun.
Vexations is one of the simplest, but also the most sophisticated and demanding compositions of the classical repertoire: the short one -page score is an instruction to repeat it 840 times, which means sixteen to twenty hours of continuous playing. This work has inspired many musicians of the second half of the 20th century, including John Cage, who rediscovered this score in the 1960s. Igor Levits in a conversation with the newspaper The Guardian emphasizes: « The twenty -hour -long Vexations The performance does not seem to me to be a burden or torture, but rather in silence and humility. « Erik himself has stated in the score: » To play this motif 840 times, it would be good to prepare for it in deep silence and serious motif. «
These requirements correspond to the method of activities of Marina Abramovich – she has focused on long -term performances in her work, which challenges the physical and mental power of a person. Marina Abramovich has blurred the boundaries between the observer and the observable – her work is unthinkable without the presence of the audience and the exchange of energy between the artist and the audience. This will be the second fruit of Marina Abramovich and Igor Levita, for the first time they worked together in New York – Art Center Park Avenue Armory The pianist executed Johann Sebastian Bach Goldberg variationsand the audience had to spend thirty minutes before the start of the concert in absolute peace and silence to play the music adventure.
Artist Marina Abramovich. Photo – Oscar Meier
In recent years, Marina Abramovich has been successfully expanding her audience – her performances go outside museums and galleries. Last year, she climbed to the Great Stage of the Glastonbury Festival in the UK and in her participation in the art campaign Seven minutes of collective silence Involved 200,000 people who had gathered to listen to rock music.
Information and Tickets: Southbankcentre.co.uk
