As part of the latest exhibition at London’s Lisson Gallery — a history of video art entitled “Performance/Audience/Mirror” — the gallery is showing a program of highlights from the exhibition on its website, some of which are making their online debut. The gallery shared a clip from this week’s featured film, Marina Abramović’s 1975 work “Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful,” with ARTINFO.

Lisson describes the full video on their website:

“In ‘Art must be beautiful/Artist must be beautiful’ (23 minutes, 36 seconds), a seminal work originally performed and documented at the Charlottenburg Art Festival, Copenhagen, Marina Abramović sits naked in front of the camera, holding a brush in each hand. Framing only her face and hands, the film documents the continual repetition of actions typically defined as feminine. As she aggressively brushes her hair, she repeats the mantra: ‘art must be beautiful, artist must be beautiful.’ For several minutes at a time, she falls silent with a still gaze, staring blankly into the distance before recommencing the punitive beauty routine. The camera remains static, framing Abramović’s head, neck, and bare chest, forming a crisp and cutting video self-portrait.”

This work, which is available to view in full on the gallery's website until July 25, will be followed by an online program of other significant videos from the exhibition, each of which will be available to stream for three or four days. Currently, the gallery has only announced the first part of their screening schedule, with the second round to be revealed in August. The lineup for the next few weeks is as follows:

July 26-28: John Latham, “Speak” (1962)

July 29-August 1: Wael Shawky, “Telematch Shelter” (2008)

August 2-4: Christian Jankowski, “Telemistica” (1999)

“Performer/Audience/Mirror” runs through August 27 at Lisson Gallery.