Abraham Brody
“He sits quietly on a chair and invites you to sit opposite him. He looks at you, looks into you. He takes his violin, touches it, listens to it, tastes it without taking his eyes away from your eyes.”
Abraham Brody
The Alchemist of Souls
INTRODUCTION BY GULNAZ CAN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAM SHERGILL
SET DESIGN BY DAEN PALMA HUSE
Abraham Brody is a brave, beautiful human being. He sits quietly on a chair and invites you to sit opposite him. He looks at you, looks into you. He takes his violin, touches it, listens to it, tastes it without taking his eyes away from your eyes. It is not only a very intense and intimate moment that you are sharing with a musical performer and his instrument, but it is also probably the first moment in your life in which you are being invited to participate in this kind of unusual and sensual interaction. You almost become the notes, you are the inspiration that leads Abraham’s fingers and teeth to the strings of his violin. It is love, very instant but very profound. He plays what he sees in you, how you make him feel, how you change his mood.
In order to do this, he opens his body, his ears, his fingers and his eyes to you, and his heart leads this opening. It is almost impossible not to feel very emotional through this experience. Art has never been this full of passion or enlightenment.
For The Protagonist Magazine, Abraham performed in a specifically designed set for the first time and we filmed his performance. Performance art is very hard to capture on film but in so doing, the team and James Corbin as the cinematographer attempted to explore a new means of showcasing what Abraham does, adding a rich visual element to mirror his performance and feeling, as is shown in the images here. He describes his experience of the shoot as different to anything he has done so far.
Read the full interview in our print issue one available online on boutiquemags.com or in bookshops and on newsstands worldwide.
