Eating an Onion. Notes on Marina Abramović

Abstract

The Onion is a 1995 video performance by Marina Abramović. The essay aims at analyzing some central themes of the artist’s path, taking this work as reference text. First of all, by including the artist in the process of dissolution of beauty marking the art of the Twentieth century and regarding performance art as one of the outcomes of this process inaugurated by the avant-gardes. Secondly, by showing the link between the political dimension (in this particular case, the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s) and an existential reflection focused on the role of the artist and the woman in the contemporary world.