Marina Abramović’s shocking Rhythm 0 performance shows why we still cannot trust people in power

This article is more than 8 months old

In 1974, Marina Abramović dared an audience to use chains, lipstick and knives on her body – and their willingness to abuse her revealed frightening truths about misogyny

Katy Hesse

Monday 25 September 2025

If you walk into the Royal Academy in London today, you’ll be confronted by a table. Set up like an altar, and draped in a white cloth, it has on it 69 objects. Some are associated with pleasure – a glass, a candle, a rose, a hairbrush, a mirror, a comb, a lipstick. Others administer pain – a gun, a bullet, chains, an axe, a saw, an array of sharp knives.

Daido Moriyama / A Woman in Tights

Tights, 2011. Silver gelatin print 
Photo by Daido Moriyama

Daido Moriyama

A WOMAN IN TIGHTS

This picture was taken in 1986, and what you see is what you get. The shoot was quite natural: I asked my girlfriend to make an occasional pose, but didn't particularly direct her. I tend not to have feelings or thoughts while I work: I am completely immersed in the visual world of the subject.