WILSHIRE CENTER

Yugoslav artist Marina Abramovic and her German husband, Ulay, have been working together as performance artists since the day they met 11 years ago. Their performances tend to be lengthy feats of endurance that explore ideas of risk and physical pain as a means to a heightened state of consciousness.

The same Jungian notions surface repeatedly in their work, and as they travel the world in pursuit of extraordinary experience they recognize no borders. They recently invited a Tibetan lama and an Aboriginal medicine man to join them in a performance, and next year they plan to walk the Great Wall of China.

Ulay/Marina Abramovic’s interest in permanent art objects is marginal at best, and their local debut is a sort of teasing trailer as far as what it tells you about the variety and complexity of their cumulative body of work. A series of larger-than-life photographs made using the world’s largest Polaroid camera, the show is apt to leave you baffled unless you do a little homework.

The bulk of these massive vertical photos depict Marina dressed in a long skirt with breasts exposed, posed in the manner of an Egyptian hieroglyphic. Her head is obscured by masks which were designed after images from her subconscious. Ulay has reportedly developed an aversion to being photographed so he had a lab technician stand in for him when it came time to step in front of the giant lens. Also on view is a pair of empty color fields, one red, one blue. In light of the fact that Ulay/Marina Abramovic’s inner life is the central core of their art, these humming color fields are perhaps most in keeping with previous work. The title of the show is “Modus Vivendi,” a Latin term describing a temporary agreement or compromise; the work’s double-focus of ancient iconography and modern technology is perhaps the compromise it refers to. (Burnett Miller Gallery, 964 N. La Brea Ave., to April 5.)