![]() ![]() “Every performance has a concept, and when I set out the rules I stick to them no matter what. She has lain inside a burning star of sawdust, had a crossbow pointed to her heart, and even allowed the audience to prod and cut her naked body as she lay motionless. In a career spanning over 40 years, Abramovic has constantly challenged the notions of what art should be, using her body as an instrument, and sometimes risking her life in the process. “When we grow older we lose that connection with other people, and Marina helps us regain it through her.” “Connection,” says Julia Peyton-Jones, co-director of the Serpentine Gallery, who first invited Abramovic to stage a show after she won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1997. Even so, what makes people from all walks of life, as seen in New York, wait for hours just to be in her presence? Strikingly beautiful in the flesh and looking two decades younger than her 67 years, she exudes a mesmerizing mix of hypnotic energy, reassuring warmth and sharp wit. It’s hard to think of another artist who can draw monumental crowds with such an airy concept, but after spending half an hour with Abramovic, you start to see the pull. For her 2010 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, over 850,000 people queued day and night just to sit opposite her, many breaking down in tears when finally faced with her. If this seems like an audacious proposal, Abramovic has managed to do something similar with aplomb before. What I do know is that in this piece I have to give not 100, but 120 per cent of myself, because only then I can create energy out of empty space.” “It’s difficult to say what I’m going to do because I don’t know. “It took me 25 years to gather courage, concentration and knowledge to come to this” the formidable artist says, clad in an almost monastic outfit of black high-neck shirt, long overcoat and dark trousers. The museum walls have been stripped, and there are some folding chairs and beds which she may or may not use in storage, but essentially, Abramovic is relying purely on an exchange of energy with her audience. Indeed, Abramović’s art has frequently involved blood, bodies, nudity, pain and tension, but that doesn’t maker a demonic worshipper of dark entities it just makes her daring! “I am personally afraid that any kind of lunatic with a gun will come and shoot me, because they think I’m a Satanist,” Abramović continued in her Times interview.The legendary Serbian-born New York-based artist is in London for the biggest show of her career, and she is revealing a small glimpse of it to a room full of enchanted international journalists.Įntitled 512 Hours, the exhibition will see Abramovic in residence at the Serpentine Gallery for 64 days, spending eight hours a day with no breaks trying to create art out of nothing. Marina Abramović in 2000 with her work ‘Spirit Cooking.’ Wolfgang Weihs/picture alliance via Getty Images “I really want to ask these people, ‘Can you stop with this? Can you stop harassing me? Can’t you see that this is just the art I’ve been doing for 50 years of my life?'” ![]() “I need to open my heart,” Abramović told the New York Times in a new interview. ![]() However, she’s rarely, if ever, addressed accusations from conspiracy theorists of her loyalty to occult practices, until now. SEE ALSO: Microsoft’s ‘Mixed Reality’ Goggles Take Marina Abramović on a World TourĪbramović has spoken extensively about the tensions involved with offering up her body and femininity to the public as part of her performance art. Such profoundly Salem-flavored denouncements of Abramović’s work have followed her throughout her career, but they evidently increased exponentially when the WikiLeaks dump of John Podesta’s emails unearthed brief correspondence with Abramović in which she talked about a “Spirit Cooking” dinner at her residence that he was invited to. A Microsoft YouTube video promoting the project was subsequently down-voted en masse by detractors and conspiracy theorists, encouraged by Reddit threads and Infowars, who labeled Abramović “the queen of occult symbolism” and a “Spirit Cooking priestess.” In January, Christie’s announced an upcoming collaboration with Abramović and Microsoft that would involve Abramović ‘s work This Life being projected to audiences via “mixed reality” headsets. Ursula Düren/picture alliance via Getty Imagesīesides earning her spot as one of the world’s most famous and talented performance artists, Marina Abramović has also inadvertently become one of the most divisive public figures currently working in the arts. The performance artist Marina Abramović comes to the premiere of her film Body of Truth. ![]()
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