Visitors to a new Royal Academy exhibition must squeeze between two nude models to enter it.
The unusual installation is part of a career retrospective of Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović.
There is a separate entrance for those who are uncomfortable squeezing through the nude performers.
The exhibition has otherwise received mixed reviews from critics – the Guardian called it “vital” but the Times said it was “remorseless”.
Entering between the two naked performers forces those with tickets into a “confrontation between nakedness, and the gender, the sexuality, the desire”, the Royal Academy’s head of exhibitions Andrea Tarsia has said.
The unusual piece was first staged in 1977 by Abramović and her then German partner, Ulay. The pair stood close together in a doorway, compelling visitors to pass between them.
The Telegraph’s critic Alastair Sooke said he was “too preoccupied with not stamping on their toes” to be able to sense whether there was a frisson as he passed during the new installation in London.
“You don’t have to go through the naked gates. There’s a bypass, but it’s cheating,” added the Times’ Laura Freeman. “I squeezed through, sucking in my stomach, trying not to tread on anyone’s toes or brush against anything.”
The retrospective takes in Abramović’s half-century career. She is the first female artist to have a solo exhibition in the Royal Academy’s principal galleries in its 255-year history.
(Source BBC)
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