In 2005, Marina Abramović presented 7 Easy Pieces at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where she meticulously restaged seven performances by different artists, each lasting seven hours. For each performance she obtained permission from the artist or the estate and compensated them for the use of their ideas. One notable piece she re-performed was How to Explain the Pictures to a Dead Hare by Joseph Beuys, originally conceived in 1965 and first performed it at the Schmela Gallery in Düsseldorf. The documentation of Abramović’s re-performance and Beuys’s original staging serves as a vital foundation for ongoing artistic research in the Joseph Beuys Archive and within the collection of the Museum Schloss Moyland in collaboration with the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI). 

A group of international artists will thus create a series of new, site-specific, long duration performances aimed at revitalising the performative nature of the Beuys holdings at Museum Schloss Moyland. These performances will foster a renewed dialogue between the artwork and museum visitors, transforming the way audiences engage with the collection. In this innovative approach, the traditional rules governing the use of a collecting art institution will be suspended in favour of an experimental openness and processuality. For the first time, the Marina Abramović Institute will co-organise a month-long residency at the museum, during which artists will develop new performances informed by their research in the archive and collection on site.

Curated by Serge le Borgne (MAI), Antje-Britt Mählmann and Billy Zhao (MAI)