the master and the muse (poetry on skin 2)

Bulgakov’s The Master and Margareta was a seminal influence in Mia Florentine Weiss’s artistic evolution, inspiring not only her poetry while in Moscow, which she disseminated as a “Kamikaze Lover,” but also influencing her personal relationship with one of her own masters, the artist Nikolai Makarov. She first encountered his works in New York City, where she lived at the time. Soon she began to study under him at his atelier in Berlin. In her performance “Master and Muse” the roles appear interchangeable. Each image is based upon a poem both written and staged by Weiss. In the symbiotic relationship, the artist has thus metamorphosed into the master. The performance marks the end of their atelier work and the beginning of Weiss’s career as a conceptual performance artist.