ABSTRACT
The ‘image’ in art is a process of self-construction and self-fashioning. According to the modern theories of sociology and psychology, the self is made or fashioned in the light of social expectations and norms and is performed before an audience, that is, in the social world. The initial encounter of self that is primarily regarded visual such as in the myth of Narcissus, calls into enquiry the necessary relationship between one’s own body image and the idea of self. Marina Abramovic’s performance art includes long durations of pain and suffering, returning to the primal metaphysical questions about existence, time and death. The idea of pain in Marina’s performance art can be considered synonymous to death. The margin between permanence and impermanence is being questioned through art; the boundaries of self, time and death also are tested and pushed through the performance arts of women artists of the contemporary times.
