Europe in the Seventies

The 3rd Biennale of Sydney took place in 1979 with the theme, ‘European Dialogue’. Many of the artists were flown to Australia for the event, and some travelled on to Melbourne for the exhibition Europe in the Seventies at the NGV – Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Daniel Buren, Mario Merz, Daniel Spoerri, Ulrike Rosenbach and Jurgen Klauke.

For Abramovic and Ulay, it was the performance art power couple’s first visit to Australia – they returned the following year and spent six months living in the Central Australian desert on Pitjantjatjara land. For the exhibition, they performed Go . . . Stop . . . Back . . . Stop, 1979, in which Ulay moved about the NGV foyer in response to random commands from his own voice recorded on tape while Abramovic sat in the middle of the space pulling feathers from a pillow and counting each one.