Marina Abramović
Marina Abramović is a renowned Serbian-born performance artist, known for her provocative and often perilous works that challenge the boundaries of art and audience interaction. Born on November 30, 1946, in Belgrade, she has been active in the performance art scene for over forty years, engaging viewers in deeply immersive experiences that sometimes involve risk to her health and safety. Abramović's career took a significant turn after her collaboration with fellow artist Ulay, with whom she explored themes of intimacy and conflict in performances during the 1970s and 1980s.
One of her most notable works, "The Artist Is Present," involved sitting silently across from visitors at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, allowing for powerful moments of connection that drew over eight hundred thousand participants. Abramović has continued to evolve her artistic practice, incorporating endurance and audience participation into her performances, as seen in her later works like "512 Hours" and "Generator." She established the Marina Abramović Institute, promoting time-based art, and has received numerous accolades, including the Golden Lion at the 1997 Venice Biennale.
Her personal life, including her relationships and challenges, has also informed her art, making her an influential figure in contemporary performance art. In recognition of her contributions, Abramović has been the subject of documentaries and received honorary degrees, showcasing her impact on the art world as both a performer and a visionary.
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Marina Abramović
Date of birth: November 30, 1946
- Born: November 30, 1946
- Place of Birth: Place of birth: Belgrade, Serbia
Education: Academy of Fine Arts, Belgrade, 1970; graduate studies at Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia, 1972
Significance: Serbian-born Marina Abramović has been a performance artist for more than forty years. She specializes in performances that require direct audience participation and sometimes puts her health and even her life at risk. It is not uncommon for her to ingest substances during performances or to ask the audience to cut her with knives.
Background
Marina Abramović was born on November 30, 1946, in Belgrade in the Socialist Republic of Serbia. Her parents, Danica Rosi and Vojin Abramović, were Yugoslav resistance fighters with the National Liberation Army during World War II. They were considered heroes to their countrymen and held respected offices in the Communist government.
Abramović was raised by her devoutly religious grandparents for the first six years of her life; she rejoined her parents after her younger brother, Velimir, was born. Her childhood was difficult and even abusive at times. After her father left the family when Abramović was eighteen, her mother maintained strict control and enacted a 10:00 p.m. curfew even when Abramović was performing. This continued until she left home when she was twenty-nine.
In 1965, Abramović attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade and initially studied painting. After graduation, she pursued graduate studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia, and began doing performance art. She also taught at the Academy of Arts, University of Novi Sad.
Initially, Abramović's performance pieces were traditional and involved sound and images. However, she soon moved to those that directly involved her body and often put her at risk by ingesting substances or allowing the audience to use knives to cut her. For one performance during her Rhythm series in the 1970s, she gave audience members access to a loaded gun while she lay still and defenseless before them. In another, she used knives to cut herself and jumped over a flaming star on the ground, losing consciousness in the process. However, even though she pursued such a dangerous type of art, during her early career, she adhered to her mother’s requirement that she be home by 10:00 p.m.
Life’s Work
Abramović’s art took a leap forward in 1975 when she met fellow performance artist Uwe Laysiepen during a trip to Yugoslavia. Abramović and Ulay, as he was known professionally, became a performance team. The pair traveled across Europe in a van, visiting sites such as Tibetan monasteries and African deserts while performing along the way.
Their joint performances often played on relationships. Sometimes they focused on the potential for intimacy, as in 1977’s "Breathing In/Breathing Out" show, where they breathed into each other’s open mouths until they both passed out after seventeen minutes from the buildup of carbon dioxide. Other times, their art showed the more difficult side of relationships, such as in the performance "Light/Dark," also in 1977, during which they took turns slapping each other’s faces. Their shared performances and relationship continued until 1988. When they decided to go their separate ways, they concluded their relationship with one final performance, "The Lovers," during which they started walking toward each other from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China. After three months, they met in the middle and kept walking.
Following her breakup with Ulay, Abramović continued her performance art, sometimes adding sculptural or video elements. Her first solo performance after her partnership ended was in 1989 and titled "Transitory Objects for Human and Non-Human Use."' It was shown widely in the United States and Europe.
Abramović’s art has often tested the limits and endurance of her body, such as deliberately inflicting pain on herself or allowing others to do so. As she entered the fourth decade of artistic performances, she incorporated endurance in the form of forcing herself to perform for long stretches. In "The Artist Is Present" (2010), Abramović sat still in a chair in the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City for eight hours at a stretch for days on end while observers took turns sitting in a chair opposite her and staring into her eyes. Abramović stared at people visiting the exhibit for a total of 736 hours and 30 minutes. It is estimated more than eight hundred thousand people sat across from her during the performance. She broke her own rule of sitting still and staring only once—when her former partner Ulay took the seat opposite her. Abramović held his hands across the table.
For "512 Hours," a 2014 show in London’s Serpentine Gallery, Abramović merely wandered the museum exhibit gallery, mingling with the patrons for the entire time the exhibit was open between June 11 and August 25. Later that same year in "Generator" in New York, Abramović’s audience became the art as they were blindfolded and fitted with noise-canceling headphones before being turned loose with other patrons in a large gallery room.
The artist has published numerous books of her work. Her memoir, Walk Through Walls, was published in 2016.
On September 1, 2020, Abramović debuted a new work at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Germany. The opera project, 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, features music by Marko Nikodijević and music and scenes from other operatic works, including Carmen and La Traviata. The artist portrays Callas's spirit in the production.
In May 2023, she was hospitalized for knee surgery. She nearly died from a pulmonary embolism that caused her to go into a coma, have three operations, and spend six weeks in intensive care. Later that year, she became the first woman to have a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of London. The retrospective show occupied the main galleries.
Abramović has been the recipient of prestigious awards for her work. She has received several honorary degrees and has been the subject of an award-winning documentary. She received the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 1997 Venice Biennale and the 2003 New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" award for her performances.
Impact
With her risky behavior during shows, Abramović has pushed the limits of performance art. She has been praised for allowing audience members to become artists themselves by participating in her shows. She has also established the Marina Abramović Institute in New York to provide a permanent place to recognize art such as hers that is time-based and has no lasting physical form.
Personal
In addition to her eleven-year personal and professional relationship with fellow artist Ulay, Abramović has been married twice. She was married to fellow Serbian artist Neša Paripović from 1971 to 1976 and Italian artist Paolo Canevari from 2005 to 2009.
Bibliography
Adams, Tim. "'I Wake Up Happy! I'm Singing All Day': Marina Abramović on Pain, Love—and Her Recent Brush with Death." The Guardian, 17 Sept. 2023, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/sep/17/marina-abramovic-royal-academy-exhibition-south-bank-centre-nomadic-journey-interview. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.
Brockes, Emma. "Performance artist Marina Abramović: ‘I was ready to die’." The Guardian,May 2014. Web. 10 June 2016.
"Marina Abramovic: Art 21." Public Broadcasting Service, 2012. Web. 10 June 2016.
"Marina Abramovic (Brief Biography)." University of Oregon, Mar. 2015. Web. 10 June 2016.
"Marina Abramovic." Official Website, n.d. Web. 10 June 2016.
"Marina Abramović: 7 Deaths of Maria Callas." Harrison Parrott, www.harrisonparrott.com/creative-partnerships-tours/collaborations-productions/marina-abramovic-7-deaths-of. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.
"Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present." Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2010. Web. 10 June 2016.
Whitney, Erin. "Why Marina Abramovic Is Not Your ******* Guru." Huffington Post, Nov. 2014. Web. 10 June 2016.
Yerimen, Thian. "Halfway Tradition : Transition, Nation, and Death In the Work of Marina Abramović and Mladen Miljanović." Influence: International Journal of Science Review, vol. 6, no. 2, 2024, pp. 114-124, influence-journal.com/index.php/influence/article/view/235. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.