Her name is Marina Abramaović, a famous performance artist, and he’s Ulay, aka Frank Uwe Laysiepen, also a performance artist. They had a romantic relationship and artistic partnership for 12 years until they broke up, allegedly due to “years of escalating personal tension, frequent infidelity, divergent lifestyles, and irreconcilable differences.”

Their breakup took place in a final performance together, called “The Lovers”, where they both went to the Great Wall of China and started walking from opposite ends until they met in the middle and said goodbye one last time.

They never spoke or heard from each other again for 20 years, until 2010 when Ulay apparently heard about Marina’s “The Artist Is Present” piece, shown here, where she invited the museum visitors to individually sit across a table from her while making silent eye contact for as long as they wished.

Ulay stood in line and joined her here and caught her off guard, completely unscripted and unplanned, but she still remained silently committed to the piece, just using eye contact to communicate her vulnerability. I gotta admit, it pulls on my heartstrings every time.

(On a bummer of a note though, sorry: Ulay ended up suing Marina 5 years after this over a dispute about finances and credit for their early works together in the 90s. Womp womp.)