At precisely 2 AM, the gallery owner announced that the six hours had passed. Abramović, who had stood frozen for nearly an entire night, finally began to move. She walked directly toward the audience, her body half-naked, blood still visible on her neck, tears streaming down her face. What happened next might be the most telling moment of the entire performance.
The performance is often cited for its disturbing trajectory as the audience's behavior evolved over the course of the evening.
The Aftermath: "If You Leave the Decision to the Public, You Will Be Killed" marina abramovic rhythm 0 performance video
Rhythm 0 represents the final work in Abramović's early Rhythm series, which also included Rhythm 5 (in which she lay unconscious inside a burning star) and Rhythm 10 (in which she stabbed between her fingers with 20 different knives). But unlike many of her other works, Rhythm 0 cannot be recreated. Other performances by Abramović have been restaged, but Rhythm 0 has not. The Guardian notes, "I doubt it would be allowed, which leads me to question—can we still not trust people when they are placed in a position of power?"
Many people searching for the expect to find a seamless, high-definition, feature-length documentary of the six-hour event. However, the reality of 1970s documentation dictates a different format. 1. Black-and-White Archival Video At precisely 2 AM, the gallery owner announced
Participants stripped her clothes off, cut her skin with thorns, and drank her blood.
When the six hours ended and Abramović finally began to move toward the crowd as a human being again, the audience fled. She later reflected, . The Legacy of Rhythm 0 What happened next might be the most telling
The crowd began to test the limits of the artist's passivity. Interactions became more aggressive and invasive. Some members of the audience used the scissors to cut her clothing, while others used the thorns of the rose or other sharp objects to mark her skin. The atmosphere in the room grew increasingly tense as the artist was treated less like a person and more like the object she had claimed to be. The Final Hour: Peak Tension