Ivan Civic’s piece, NOBILE, was first staged at the 2007 Dance and Performance Biennale in Venice, as part of Body and Eros, a project by IPG (Independent Performance Group), curated by Marina Abramovic. Civic’s performance at Artists Space further explores the obsessive narcissism and dependency on perfected images in Western culture. The work is also inspired by highly ritualized exercises in auto-eroticism developed by nobility in the late 17th century.

NOBILE is the second installment of When Time Becomes Form, an ongoing performance series of long-durational work, curated by Marina Abramovic for Artists Space. The series explores and questions issues of concentration, will power, and determination, and involves the artists’ use of the entire gallery space for 6 hours during each day of their performance. Twelve distinct, but interrelated, durational performances, each created and presented by a different performance artist (a member of the Independent Performance Group (IPG)), will occupy the Main Space galleries between exhibitions. The entire series will unfold over the course of the next two years.