Relation in Space

In the 58 minute performance Relation in Space which took place in July 1976 at the Biennale in Venice, Abramovic/Ulay, both naked, walked towards each other from opposite ends of a room, touching as they pass each other, then repeating the movement while their bodies collided until they were both exhausted and one of them (Marina) fell under the impact. A statically mounted video camera simultaneously filmed the touching of bodies in the middle of the room.

In 1976, Abramović and Ulay had very recently met and started a 12-year romantic relationship that was also inseparable from their work. Relation in Space is a performance about how a couple—and a couple of artists at that—interact. It's egos and expectations colliding into each other, but also a question of gender: Abramović claimed the idea was to have male and female energy put together to create something they called “That Self.” Abramović and Ulay’s relationship continued to form a subject in their art throughout their relationship: Relation in Space is a first in a series of Relation works, which also includes, for example, Relation in Time, 1977, in which they tied their hair together and sat back to back for 16 hours. Famously, the couple’s last collaborative work is also their breakup: in The Great Wall Walk (1988), they each walked 2500 kilometers from either end of the Great Wall of China in order to meet in the middle and break up.