Marina Abramović

“The Lovers: The Great Wall Walk” (1988), one of the most symbolic performances in contemporary art. Marina Abramović and her partner Ulay began at opposite ends of the Great Wall of China—Abramović from the Yellow Sea and Ulay from the Gobi Desert—and walked toward each other for about 90 days, covering roughly 2,500 kilometers each. The original idea was to meet in the middle and marry, but by the time the project was approved after years of negotiation with Chinese authorities, their relationship had already deteriorated.

When they finally met at the center of the Wall, they embraced briefly and then said goodbye, ending both the performance and their twelve-year personal and artistic partnership. The work transforms the Wall into a metaphor for distance, time, effort, and emotional separation, turning a monumental journey into a quiet, irreversible farewell.

They see each other again in “The Artist Is Present” (2010) at MoMA. During the performance, Abramović sat silently across from individual visitors, maintaining eye contact. When Ulay unexpectedly sat in front of her, the moment broke the strict neutrality of the work: they locked eyes, became visibly emotional, and silently reached for each other’s hands. The encounter turned the performance into a powerful, unscripted reunion, collapsing decades of shared history into a few minutes of presence and mutual recognition.

Don’t miss it in the video—look it up on YouTube!