performance review

Marina Abramović reflects on a life of often-controversial, always-thoughtprovoking art.

My tolerance of pain is much greater than normal people’s. Some ask how I can keep doing this work, how am I able to push myself so much. I think it’s my background: if I look at my DNA, it’s the strangest combination. I have a very religious grandmother, then two communist national heroes as a mother and father. So within me there is the incredible strictness of my mother, the courage of my father and the fanaticism of my grandmother. When I have an idea, I will do it, no matter what. Even when my body is falling apart.

In my performances, I want to experience fear, danger, pain. In “Rhythm 0” in 1974, I gave permission to the public to do whatever they wanted to me [Abramović stood still for six hours in an art gallery as an audience chose from 72 props to use on her]. This included killing me – there was a gun that had a bullet. It was a radical decision. One man moved the pistol towards my neck and touched the trigger. There was a murmur in the crowd, and someone grabbed the guy. A scuffle broke out. I knew after this performance I was lucky to be alive. But I never wanted to kill myself – I love life too much.

There’s an old theory that the more miserable the childhood, the better artist you become, and mine has been a difficult life. I was born in 1946, and it was very gloomy living in [President Josip Broz] Tito’s Yugoslavia. Communism is a great theory, but it doesn’t work in practice. Partisans who supported Tito had better apartments and lived in better conditions. It created the red bourgeoisie, and my parents were certainly part of it. Everyone envied me because I had all the comforts that other kids couldn’t have. I was lonely because my parents were career-focused, and their relationship was fraught. Rather than loved, I felt abandoned. But it was also my parents who made me strong. In World War II, my father was shot in the arm during the fight for the liberation of [Yugoslavia’s capital] Belgrade; he took a knife and removed the bullet there and then. When my mother had me in hospital, [the nurses] said, “Start screaming – the baby’s going to come.” “Nobody will ever hear me scream,” she replied. There was an emphasis on courage and not being afraid of failure. If I fail, I fail, but I just stand up and go on again. For me, every performance is the conquering of another fear, going forwards. If I give everything, then the critics can’t do anything to me.

I always wanted to be an artist; I could not do anything else. I started painting very early as a child. I believed in invisible beings and I saw spirits that other people couldn’t see. To the horror of my parents, I would draw

everywhere, on every surface. My first exhibition, when I was 14, was of paintings of my dreams. I went to an academy in Belgrade to study and won a prize. I started thinking about how to include the body, and materials like fire, water and ice. You spend all those years learning, but then you have to spend years forgetting and finding your own way. I didn’t escape Belgrade until I was 29. I went to Amsterdam, which was completely free and crazy in the ’70s. When I was living with my parents in Yugoslavia, I had to be home by 10pm because my mother was so strict. When I got to Amsterdam, I could walk naked in the streets if I wanted to. It was an interesting transition of the spirit, but I had to create rules so that I could function. Otherwise, I’d have been lost.

I was sent an invitation in Amsterdam to do a TV program on body art. After filming, I said I’d like to buy everyone a drink because the invitation to be in the show had arrived on my birthday. A German performance artist, a man called Ulay [Frank Uwe Laysiepen], stood up and said, “It arrived on my birthday, too – November 30.” It was the start of a long love story. We lived in a van for five years and travelled around Europe, which was pretty rough. We had nothing: I wore wooden shoes and I knitted my own pullovers. But it was an important few years; how do you deal with the ego of two artists? It was not his work or my work, but our work.

For nine years, it was incredibly beautiful. And then the relationship started falling apart. We were going to walk the Great Wall of China – the concept was that we’d meet in the middle. But it was hell; it took eight years before China gave us permission to do it. We were at the end of our relationship already, so we decided that instead of walking the wall and getting married, we’d walk and say goodbye. When we said goodbye [after 90 days of solo walking] I knew he’d already had an affair with a Chinese translator who was pregnant with his child. It was just a little extra pain.

It’s very amusing to look at what the critics wrote about my work in the ’70s, especially about the difficult performances that are now iconic pieces: “This is not art, this is ridiculous, this is sadism.” They didn’t realise the depths of the performance. It wasn’t easy – 55 years is a long time to believe that you are right when everyone is against you. It’s only during the past 10 years that things became different. My generation is bitchy, jealous and constantly criticising, but young people really see the connection and they support my work, which is phenomenal for me.

The Artist Is Present, my show at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 2010, would not have worked at all 10 years ago [Abramović sat for six days a week, seven hours a day, in MOMA’S atrium where visitors were invited to sit on a chair opposite her]. It worked when it did because we are now so lost in technology. People text each other, they don’t talk – it’s a sad period for humanity. The work was so simple: you’re waiting for hours, and then you come and sit in front of me, and I look at you. You have nowhere to go, so you have to go into yourself. That moment of here and now, peace and connection – that is what I provided.

It was so hard for me to do that for three months. There was so much pain and loneliness in my life at that time, and people saw that because I was vulnerable. But being vulnerable meant other people could be open – I could see their pain. I got emotional responses. Yes, I can make people cry! But there was also love. Even now, on the street, people will stop me and say, “I love you.” I often ask myself whether what I do is art. Whatever it is, I know that emotional connection is important because today, everything is unemotional, everything is in the brain. I want you to get it in the stomach.

I was never interested in feminism; I was just doing my thing. But the negative reaction towards my success is probably because I’m female. I’m not allowed to be successful, wear fashion, have a nice place – men can, but a woman is not allowed. No-one ever questioned that Jeff Koons has a Picasso in his bedroom. I’m only facing this reaction now because, before, I never had any money. Before, there was a problem about my work – now, my whole lifestyle is a problem.

If I was successful when I was 20, I’d have overdosed, fucked up and died. But it came so gradually that nothing changed in me. You just meet these people, like James Franco and Lady Gaga, at restaurants or galas; it’s not like you’re trying to meet them. If they like the work, they come to talk to me, and we become friends or we don’t become friends. Turning 70, you really put all the memories in the past. It’s like a new beginning. And you have very little time to make sense of your life. You don’t have time for bullshit anymore. In my life, I am always looking beyond, wanting to see every single culture on this planet, travelling and experimenting and learning. And I’m still learning.

“In my performances, I want to experience fear, danger, pain. In 1974, I gave permission to the public to do whatever they wanted to me. This included killing me. One man moved a pistol towards my neck and touched the trigger. A scuffle broke out. I knew after this performance I was lucky to be alive”