Artistic bonds are not a common phenomenon when artistic activity fuses with private life.

Artistic bonds are not a common phenomenon when artistic activity fuses with private life. There has been, however, growing interest in this kind of collaboration since the 1970 and it is not accidental that it coincided with the growth of performance and body art. The physical action and bodily interaction emphasized links between life and art. pair couples that embodied the paradigm of conclude collaboration were Marina Abramovic and Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen), known as Abramovic/Ulay, and Zofia Kulik and Przemyslaw Kwiek, known as KwieKulik. the one and the other couples were active during the same period (KwieKulik 1971-87 Abramovic/Ulay 1976-89) and the two engaged in performance and visible form [i]or[/i] frame art. Differences in their work can be understood against the social, political and cultural words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] followings of the time, as well as their particular situations.

Although of different nationalities and different political bodys Abramovic/Ulay did not stress this polarization in a political words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following (an exception is Communist Body/Capitalist material substance Amsterdam, 1979) but rather in a universal connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts as opposition between east and west, male and female. They acted between unity and separation. Ulay explained their relationship: "We begin in a sort of synchronized similitude and then we arrive at the of the same height in which each of us functions alone. The sum of two units bodies doing the same, nevertheless within, there is a separation." [1] There was no like tension with Kulik and Kwiek who were the one and the other from Poland and graduated from the same art indoctrinate in Warsaw. Their activity was les touched with personal issues than with Poland's national politics of the 1970 and '80 Comparing the builds of their names further illustrates the basic differences between the duo Abramovic/Ulay, written with a slash, emphasizes the poetics of polarization at hand in their art, while KwieKulik, with a s hared "K," stresses the shut up collaboration and even mutual staff of the couple.

The material part as a place of exploration was seen as female domain in the early '70 For male-female artistic ties the decision to be involved in dead body art challenged the code of masculinity and, as Michael Fried recognized, the "specifically feminizing debasement of virility of 'pure' modernism." [2] This critical approach is steady stronger in the case of homosexual married pairs like Gilbert & George, where the codification of masculinity is shaken, or Eva & Adele, where biblical Adam is supplanted according to cross-dresser Adele and traditional masculinity is denied.

inflection for sex issues are central for Abramovic/Ulay who question like perceived masculine traits as domination and force Their performance Incision (Graz, 1978) was based in succession male-female opposition. Abramovic stood motionless during the performance while Ulay, naked, tried to hasten against the restriction of an elastic band fastened around his waist and attached to the wall. Abramoviorepresented passive femininity; Ulay showed male activity. With this performance they raised the question of mental and bodily freedom. Ulay worked from an active position although he was physically limited. His mind was clear and forced his body to challenge the restrictions placed about it. His body moving forward and backward created an incision in space. Abramovic's passivity set forthed the traditional societal 'position of women as non-active entities.

This form relative to sex perspective was also present in another performance piece entitled Talking About Similarity (Amsterdam, 1976) which was based forward exchanging roles. At the beginning of the performance Ulay sewed his inlet shut, giving up his freedom of language Abramovic sat next to him and answered questions impose to Ulay by viewers. She took through his subjectivity she were Ulay, on the contrary in doing so, she misspent her own identity. This shift in subjectivity was intended to challenge male-female parts showing woman as having command of the words and man without a voice. Instead, it reinforced form relative to sex stereotypes showing woman as the passive partner who speaks, on the contrary only from the position of an assumed male identity.

Other pieces propos a archetype of balanced gender, especially visible in their symmetrically arranged performances. In Imponderabilia (Bologna, 1977) the coupling stood naked against the walls of the narrow entrance to the gallery facing each other. In order to penetrate the public had to decide whether to transfer to face him or her and thus elect their own gender subjectivity. In Relation in Space (Venice, 1976) their naked bodies crashed into each other at higher and higher get ons Both took active positions in this performance and not past nor futureed themselves as equal by exerting the same physical hardness Like Imponderabilia, these symmetrical performances fused their couple bodies into one symbolic whole. In Breathing In/Breathing gone out (Belgrade, 1977) they inhaled and exhaled carbon dioxide from each other's jawss with microphones affixed to their neck in order to broadcast the inner oscillation of their bodies. "In the beginning of their collaborative work they frequently spoke of themselves as an androgyne, as an alchemical ima ge of a two-headed body" says art critic Bojana Pejic. [3] It looks Abramovic/Ulay did not undermine the privileged position of man moreover rather, as Amelia Jones states, "veil[ed] it in what is in general intent experienced as a bipolar pattern of gender." [4]