Marina Abramovic
Marina Abramovic
Marina Abramovićis a Yugoslav performance artist based in New York. Her work explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. Active for over three decades, Abramović has been described as the "grandmother of performance art." She pioneered a new notion of identity by bringing in the participation of observers, focusing on "confronting pain, blood, and physical limits of the body."...
NationalitySerbian
ProfessionPerformance Artist
Date of Birth30 November 1946
CountrySerbia
Marina Abramovic quotes about
We make such terrible mistakes with visual choices about beauty.
The public is in need of experiences that are not just voyeuristic. Our society is in a mess of losing its spiritual centre.
In the performer's body, you don't care how you look. It doesn't matter if you're old, fat, beautiful, or ugly. It doesn't change anything. The only thing is your charisma and how you express your idea.
When you're 50, the best thing to do is dance the Argentinean tango.
Talking about performance is such a strange thing because it's so immaterial. We are talking about soft matter. We are talking about something that is invisible. You can't see it. You can't touch it. You just can feel it.
People put so much effort into starting a relationship and so little effort into ending one.
I don't know anything about the afterlife because I haven't been there yet.
When people ask me where I am from I never say, 'Serbia.' I always say, 'I come from a country that no longer exists.'
Happiness is such a good state, it doesn't need to be creative. You're not creative from happiness, you're just happy. You're creative when you're miserable and depressed. You find the key to transform things. Happiness does not need to transform.
For me, performance is a holy ground. When I perform, I really step into a different state of consciousness.
I'm interested in asking: 'What does feminine energy mean?' I don't have answers - I just have questions and interesting examples.
To really change the way society thinks, you have to give your entire being to it until there's nothing left.
I was friends with Susan Sontag the last four years of her life. She had this amazing charisma and so much energy, but she had a sad little funeral in Montparnasse in Paris. It was rainy. It was all wrong. And I was thinking, 'God, she loved life so much.'
Most of the time, the artists are not supposed to wear the fashion. It is always seen as a vanity. But I think I don't need to prove anything in my life. I can honestly say I love fashion and I can be many things at the same time.