Marina Abramovic Essay

Marina Abramovic has lived without privacy at MoMA for 12 days on nothing but water; she’s invited strangers to use 72 random objects (including a gun with one bullet) on her in any way they want; she’s walked half the 5,500-mile length of the Great Wall of China to confront heartbreak. Her life as a whole has involved pushing herself to her physical and mental limits, and then going further. So it’s a surprise when, in person, she’s anything but intimidating. Within seconds, she’s asking about my right arm (in a sling from tennis-induced rotator cuff surgery) and then about the scar I have on the same arm (souvenir keloid from a childhood dog attack). “This is good,” she pronounces. “Scars I find the most interesting. I see no point in not asking right away — what happened?”

Abramovic, a Serbian artist born in 1946, is arguably the reason performance art is on the map as a genuine, recognized art form. Since her career began in the 1970s, she’s accrued critical recognition, a touch of infamy and multiple
All the contradictions I have as a person. I specify three Marinas: one who’s really spiritual and dedicated to the work, and another who’s a warrior and about breaking borders and going to unmarked territories, and the third is lots of sweets and lots of bad movies. Heartbreaks. Just a pain in the ass, basically. Lots of black humor and not politically correct, that’s for sure.

And all those three live in me. In the beginning of my career I was only showing one part, and then I understood that if I do performance, the only way I can reach the public and touch their hearts is to show all your vulnerability. Then the public can actually see themselves in me. There’s not any subject the public doesn’t know about me. I don’t have secrets, and this is so liberating, because this makes me free. So 70, for me, is the beginning of the last part of life, of this big journey, and I really want it to happen. I’m stressed until it finally