‘In a chosen space. We are standing naked in the main entrance of the Museum facing each other. The public entering the Museum has to pass sideways through the small space between us. Each person passing has to choose which one of us to face’.
With these words Marina Abramović described the circumstances for the performance Imponderabilia, which was first held at the Galleria Communale d’Arte Moderna in Bologna in 1977 and which she performed together with Ulay (1943-2020). That specific performance went as follows:
Even before entering, the visitor encounters an enormous barrier. A physical threshold has been replaced by a mental obstacle: two bodies that provide just enough passage to pass sideways. The biggest difficulty factor is determined by the lack of their clothing. The artist duo Ulay-Abramović stands naked in the narrow doorway; she with her back against the right post, he against the left. They look at each other continuously. Their gazes seem to fill the empty space with a solid impenetrable substance that you don’t want to end up in. Once inside, the visitor is confronted with a statement on the opposite wall:
‘Imponderables. Such imponderable human factors as one’s aesthetic sensitivity/ the overriding importance of imponderables in determining human conduct’.
This sentence makes clear that the actual work of art does not (just) consist of the bodies of two artists present, nor even the situation, but the behaviors and reactions of the audience. After a few hours local policemen put an end to the performance. According to them, the artists were breaking the law by standing on the threshold of public space exhibiting their bodies. Had they been all the way inside, they would not have broken any official law. And this didn’t even include all the unwritten behavioural rules they addressed and that made this piece so compelling.
Counting what counts – numbers and observations
Directly opposite the entrance where Ulay and Abramović are standing, a hidden camera has been mounted to document the performance. And I meticulously counted and analyzed every single interaction that was filmed.
The compilation shows 323 people passing by; 141 women and 182 men. Each of them is confronted with the choice of whether they will pass towards the male or female body, while the other body also remains clearly palpable. The prediction that the majority, both men and women, would pass with their bodies towards Abramović, turns out to be correct. 216 out of 323 people make this choice. It is striking that relatively more women focus on Ulay, namely 40 percent. For men this is less than thirty percent. So you can say that no less than 40 percent of women choose the opposite sex, compared to 70 percent of men. Although touching of both nudes cannot be prevented, most people still try to make themselves as small as possible, keep their hands close to them, and walk quickly.
Unique responses
There were also a number of unique reactions (in the sense that they only occurred once). The video shows people on the street through the glass wall who keep walking back and forth and looking, but who do not dare to enter. An older woman with a walking stick, who hesitates for several minutes, finally squeezes between the two giants and gasps for air, making it seem as if she is drinking from Abramovic’s nipple like a small child, which looks quite grotesque, yet poetic.
My favourite occurrence is when a man avoids the difficult choice altogether by not choosing a side, but walking straight ahead. He consequently gets stuck and now has to put up even longer with a situation that clearly makes him feel uncomfortable. When he finally manages to get out of his tight position, his backpack gets stuck. Once he breaks free, he quickly gets away as though fleeing a fire.
Only a few people feel ‘unashamed’ enough (or they try to demonstrate it forcibly) to voluntarily and very consciously touch one of the artists with their hands. This is limited to men grabbing Ulay’s and women touching Abramović’s shoulder. A brave woman kisses the artist on the cheek as she passes. Possibly she is someone they know? And also striking: eye contact, or even directing the gaze to another part of the body, is scrupulously avoided. Only two men keep their eyes on Marina’s breasts as they pass. Wearing sunglasses obviously makes this easier.
Although the majority tries to avoid the subject of the – quite attractive – nudes as much as possible, there are four people who do not ignore the erotic aspect and even seem to exploit it (I noticed this during a reenactment in 2024 at the Stedelijk Museum. A man passed facing the attractive young woman and carefully examined every inch of her face while he did so. I was quite shocked). This corresponds to approximately two percent of the audience. Most striking is a woman who tries to take control of the situation by behaving in a noticeably flirtatious manner. Very slowly and with her eyes piercing those of the artist (they are about the same length), she brushes her body against Ulay’s, after which she looks back again and then steps away very elegantly, as if to show that the roles have been reversed and no one can force an unwanted feeling on her. On the other hand, a man seems to consciously lean against Abramović’s body a little longer. He drops to his knees, causing their breasts to touch each other exactly. Because the camera’s microphone is too far away from the people passing by, it is difficult to find out what passing visitors that are clearly speaking are saying. The lip-reading spectator can deduce ‘Scusi’ (excuse me) from the moving mouth of a man who wants to leave the gallery, gets stuck and has contact for longer than the average two seconds. The artists completely ignore him. He is forced to stay…
Unwritten rules and invisible boundaries
Every individual is surrounded by an invisible personal space that should not be exceeded in the interest of privacy and common decency. Only public situations in which people are forced to stand close to each other, such as in crowded public transportation or during a busy concert, justify violating this unwritten rule, although not always without arousing a feeling of unease. Getting too close when the available space allows another option is an outright taboo (this often happened to me as a young student in Florence where men pushed their bodies against mine in supermarkets and buses even if those were virtually empty).
Nudity in a public space is also experienced as inappropriate, unless there are specific conditions. One of them is the collective character, or the fact that no one wears clothes. A second justification for showing the naked body, for which the first condition does not have to be a prerequisite, is the necessity for it, either practically (the doctor’s visit, the sauna, the massage) or mentally (the nudist beach). But even when there is consensus in a given situation about nudity in public spaces, people will generally avoid touching the naked body of the other (except at the orgy). Within many cultures there is a collective awareness of all these unwritten conditions. With their performance, Ulay and Abramović consciously violate a number of written and unwritten rules of appropriate behavior in public space. First of all, everyone is dressed except for them. Secondly, they show their nakedness in public space without any ‘necessity’. But the visitor also voluntarily breaks a rule. He or she is not forced to enter the invisible personal space of the artists. Although the visitors of the performance were not informed in advance of the taboo-breaking action and arrived ‘unknowingly’, the choice to leave remains free. In order to make the trip to the museum worthwhile and not miss out on the resulting anticipated art experience, he or she may be more likely to take the step. People assume that the actual exhibition is behind the threshold and that the ‘reward’ will therefore follow (this is the reason the performance can never be truly reenacted; people often already know the outcome of the performance). Moreover, everyone sees his predecessor doing the same, which makes it a bit easier. Due to the continuous flow of visitors, they enjoy a certain anonymity in the crowd. The visitor then consciously chooses to conduct unaccepted behavior, which is approved by the artists, but is nevertheless inappropriate due to the conditioning circumstances and therefore feels very uncomfortable, even unpleasant to some. With the forced palpitation of the naked body in public, attractiveness can transform into discomfort or even fear. This feeling may also be related to the culturally determined fear of transmitting infections.
The ‘other’ senses
In this performance, touch transcends pure sensation or its role as a mere medium. In her famous ‘Das Material der Kunst’ (The Material of Art), art historian Monica Wagner describes the role of touch in Imponderabilia as a ‘sense of the whole body’ and considers contact with the naked body a material. Touch, even more than sight, gives meaning to the conceptual and concrete content of this performance, as I may add. Touching becomes an equivalent to breaking the previously discussed (un)written rules. The relationship that touch has with the other senses, especially sight, is also worth examining. The eye and the skin perceive the same source, namely the bodies of Abramović and Ulay, but facilitate a different relation. Not only does touch take over the function of the eyes at a crucial moment, but it takes a place that is independent of looking, which gives disproportionately more weight to the experience. After all, there is not such a pressing taboo involved with viewing a naked body, firstly because there is distance, secondly because it does not require interaction, given the fact that the viewer’s gaze does not affect the object (only touching is reciprocal). The owner of the touched body (who is simultaneously perceived object and perceiving subject), on the other hand, will notice this contact anyway, even if he or she does not show it. This makes the visitor very self aware.
Undoubtedly, scent also played a role in contributing to the feeling of forced and unwanted, or perhaps desired intimacy. So far I only found one instance where a man (a friend of mine who is interested in the sense of smell) found it quite surprising and intimate to smell the breath of a stranger.
Imponderabilia
According to the dictionary ‘Imponderabilia’ stands for those circumstances which value cannot be precisely stated, but which nevertheless have an undeniable influence. A closer look made it possible to pinpoint some of these qualities, which are all social in nature. They have everything to do with conditioning and breaking taboos. But many of these remain invisible and ‘underneath the surface’. Which adds to the beauty of the work.
Source: WikiArt, https://www.wikiart.org/en/marina-abramovic/imponderabilia
By art historian of the senses Dr. Caro Verbeek
note to reader: All the statistics and observations of behavior and reactions during of Imponderabilia were carried out by art historian Caro Verbeek and based on the documentary video: Abramovic en Ulay, Imponderablila, video, 052:16, collection Nederlands Instituut voor de Media Kunsten/ Eye, Amsterdam. More numbers: of the 141 women, 57 faced Ulay. Of the 182 men 50 faced Ulay.
This blog is based on Verbeek’s Master’s Thesis “Please touch! Tangible Examples of Tactile Art” which was transformed into the following article:
Verbeek, C. (2012), “Prière de toucher! Tactilism in Early Modern and Contemporary Art”’, (ed. Jim Drobnick) Senses & Society (7:2), Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis, pp. 225-235. Peer reviewed.
Other sources:
Conversation with Bart Rutten, (formerly a) curator of New Media at the Stedelijk Museum, 15-3-’09
Celant. G., Marina Abramovic: Public Body, 2001, p. 60.
Wagner, M.,Das Material der Kunst, 2001, pp. 276-277.
Watch my Tedx-talk “Inhaling the Past – Smelling the Future” (2016) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g37Qe8Kriuo
Listen to my interview with Manoush Zomorodi for Ted Radio Hour “Caro Verbeek: What CanThe Scents of The Past Tell Us About Our History?” (2021), Part 3 of Breathe, here: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/15/956933669/caro-verbeek-what-can-the-scents-of-the-past-tell-us-about-our-history
Or read our olfactory museology paper Verbeek, C., Leemans, I., Fleming, B. (2022), “How can scents enhance the impact of guided museum tours? towards an impact approach for olfactory museology”, Senses & Society, here: https://doi.org/10.1080/17458927.2022.2142012
Futurist Scents 