MARINA ABRAMOVIC

More than any other artist, Marina Abramovic has dedicated her life to performance. In the 1970s, the Yugoslav-born avant-garde pioneer pushed the limits of her mind and body in dangerous and intense pieces, and, through her extraordinarily powerful work, became a cult figure worshipped by millions of fans. This September, inspired by another great heroine – music diva Maria Callas – Abramovic is staging her very first opera. Mixing film and live action, 7 Deaths of Maria Callas melds the extraordinary biographies of these two artists, and reflects on the close ties between life and death.

Your previous couture collection was inspired by the way Pasolini handled time, filming the present as though it were a veil that allows glimpses into the past. Exactly, even if it’s a very loose reference, because I’m never literal. Like him, I looked at the different layers of Rome, the idea of time in Rome: one woman was an empress, another a new Maria Callas, with whom Pasolini worked. It’s about time travelling, which is interesting when you think about couture, because it lasts much longer than ready-to-wear and is passed down from generation to generation.

You also set yourself the challenge of translating the textures of Rome into clothing, for example evoking the marble folds of a statue in a garment.

Yes. When you see Bernini’s beautiful works at the Villa Borghese, where he sculpted stone into fluid form, you wonder how you might do that in clothing. So you study the fabrics, you study the techniques, and that’s where the atelier comes in handy, since they’re hugely knowledgeable about fabrics.

Some designers “dictate” their ideas to the ateliers. Is your method more about dialogue? Do you find inspiration in things you’ve seen in the workshop? You see things in the archive, you see things in the workshop, the team presents things to you. Under the current sanitary rules, I can be Italy for five days without having to quarantine, so I’m doing my best to be as present as I can. But when I return to the UK, I have to isolate for eight days. It’s a funny time to be starting a new job, but challenges don’t scare me.

There’s something rather Surrealist about the collection and Luca Guadagnino’s film. Was that also inspired by the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, where Fendi has its headquarters, with its metaphysical, post-Surrealist architecture?

Yes, and you couldn’t wish for a better building to work in to be honest – it’s almost as though it had been designed for artistic creation. It’s got the light, it’s got the clarity you need so that it doesn’t become distracting, but it’s incredibly beautiful at the same time. We’re doing the fittings in what must be the biggest studio

I’ve ever worked in, and it’s full of light, it’s airy, and it’s exactly what you need. With the film, when we started seeing the collection and how beautiful it was, I really wanted to do something otherworldly – with Max Richter’s music and Luca’s beautiful film and the beautiful collection, you get something that’s almost like from another world, or another time, and that’s really what I wanted to convey.

How did you and Guadagnino work on the film?

Well Luca is a great friend of Silvia’s, and I just knew he’d do a brilliant job. He went away and storyboarded it, but I didn’t even need to see the storyboard, because I could see when they started filming how he would bring it all together. I work with people I trust, and I’m a very open collaborator – I’m not someone that needs total control. Control for me always feels a bit insecure.

Did the fact that Guadagnino is close to the Fendis make things easier?

Yes, he understands the house. You know, my role is to make my boss [Serge Brunschwig, Fendi’s CEO] and the Fendi family happy. I’m third in the list. I’m very straightforward I guess: I work to the brief, and that’s why I can do two houses, because I look at each in a separate way.

You’ve remained faithful to your friends and muses, among them Kate Moss. But you also had Demi Moore walk your first show. What’s your relationship to all these different women?

They’re women I really find impressive, who do amazing things in the world and live their lives in the open. They’re extremely intelligent, and I think that the Fendi woman is too. That’s why I cast them as the face of Fendi. We also have a mix of young girls that people don’t know, and they really enjoy the experience of working with these famous women they look up to. It’s about female empowerment basically, and I think that’s really important. I really love Demi, and when you read her biography you understand that she went through so much but managed to remain amazing. I think women have a much harder time than men. Their strength is really impressive and that’s what I want to maintain with Fendi – these strong independent women who lead the way.

NUMÉRO: Marina, you’re often described as the godmother of performance art, and… MARINA ABRAMOVIC: Please don’t use that word! I mentioned it just once and I’ve regretted it ever since. I’m just a pioneer in performance art. I hate it when people use a word that includes god’s name.

Okay... You became known early on for your performances, but you’ve also turned to theatre on several occasions. Prior to this new opus, you co-created with Bob Wilson The Life of Marina Abramovic, as well as a version of Ravel’s Boléro with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damien Jalet and Riccardo Tisci. What’s your relationship to theatre as a medium? At the start of my career, I hated theatre. I found it too artificial – all those people sitting in the dark, all those rehearsals to create something that really isn’t you. At the time I was positioning myself as a performance artist and therefore, officially, I had to hate all the rest. But as the years passed and I finally gained recognition, I was able to turn to other mediums, theatre being one that I greatly enjoyed. I’ve staged six autobiographies, not just the one with Bob Wilson. Before him, five other directors adapted my biography. But Bob Wilson’s version was, of course, closer to a modern opera. It’s fabulous to stage, for the first time, my own opera, 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, and to appear in it as an actress.

What’s the connection between you and Callas?

It goes back to my childhood. One day, when I was 14, I was in my grandmother’s kitchen and heard Callas’s voice on the radio. I had no idea who she was, but I started to cry – an immediate emotional reaction to her voice. Then the presenter explained that it was an opera aria sung by Callas. I wanted to know who she was. At the time she was at the summit of her career, in a love affair with Aristotle Onassis and living a life of glamour [the Greek shipping magnate would later drop her to

marry Jackie Kennedy, widow of the American president, leaving Callas devastated]. I never got to see her on stage, but I remained fascinated by her, and started researching her life, which was absolutely tragic. I became interested in her immediate entourage, her chambermaid, her mother, her lovers. She was a unique mixture of strength and vulnerability, and there were many similarities between our lives. She had a mother who was very difficult, as did I. She died of a broken heart [after Onassis died in 1975, Callas became a recluse and passed away in 1977], and I almost did too. I lost my appetite, I completely collapsed. It was my work that saved me, unlike Callas. So I wanted to pay her homage.

Montaigne said that “being philosophical means learning to die.” What’s your relationship to death? I think about it every day. There’s a Sufi proverb which says that life is a dream and dying is when you wake up. It’s important to think about death so as to make the most of every moment life has to offer.

But can we really learn to die? Do you think that your most physically extreme performances taught you how to die?

In my Manifesto, if I remember correctly, I said: “I want to die in full consciousness without fear or regret. I want to be able to fully accept this moment when I feel it coming.” And it’s something we learn to do throughout our lives.

In opera, death is very present in its most violent forms, murder and suicide. How did you treat these themes in your new work? I chose seven violent deaths: strangulation, jumping from a height, immolation, a heart attack, dying of madness, irradiation… They’re the deaths Maria Callas died on stage in the roles she played. At the end we have her eighth death. Then the audience hears her voice on a gramophone recording, the famous aria Casta Diva [from Vicenzo Bellini’s Norma], and is confronted with her phantom – the voice that will never die. Depending what you leave behind you after you’ve gone, death can be more or less absolute.

Is the Marina Abramovic Institute a question of legacy?

Legacies are very important. Where I’m concerned, I helped push performance art into the mainstream, by continuing doggedly with it for 50 years, where other artists from my era soon abandoned it. Then I introduced “reperformance,” the idea of reperforming historic pieces to give them new life. Then I invented the Abramovic method, which teaches young performers how to connect with themselves – it includes a process called “cleaning the house” to learn concentration and mastery of will, because performance art requires great physical effort. Then I introduced long-duration performances, which can last eight hours, every day, three months in a row, turning the museum into a force of life. And, through my institute, I’m making sure that performance art will never die.

You’ve become a cult figure today – some of your fans consider you a shaman or spiritual guide. How do you feel about this kind of idolatry?

I would never call myself a shaman or spiritual guide. Joseph Beuys considered himself a shaman, and though I won’t comment on that I will say that I think it’s incredibly arrogant to attribute such a status to oneself. I’m an artist whose work develops great emotional power. A friend, a New York art critic, told me, “I hate your work because it makes me cry.” Because critics like to understand things rationally, through their intellect, but that’s impossible with my performances. They can touch the man in the street or the US president because you receive them first and foremost emotionally. Concept and, eventually, message only come after. The emotion comes from the fact that in my work I give 150% of myself, not just 100%, which anyone can do. That’s where the magic happens.

You grew up in the Eastern bloc, and you’re now a celebrated artist in the West; you go to India each year to meditate and detoxify, and you also lived with an Aboriginal tribe. What have you taken away from all these different cultures?

I was born in the former Yugoslavia, and I’ll never lose the culture of the Balkans, it’s part of me. Then I wanted the vast world to become my studio, because I don’t understand how an artist can just go to their studio every day like a banker each morning. I’m a modern nomad, and all my ideas come from life itself. I’ve gone round the world several times and found inspiration in different cultures: in Asia, but also, for example, in Brazilian shamans. The people of those cultures have a very strong relationship to their minds and bodies, which Westerners have completely lost. We rely on our technologies rather than our intuitions.

Was it crucial for you to play Callas yourself in your opera?

I mix Callas’s story with mine, so it was very important. When I’m on stage, at the end, I look at photos of Aristotle Onassis and other memories of Callas. But in reality it’s my own childhood I’m looking at, and my marriage which broke apart. Callas had a very difficult life, but I think that’s necessary in order to have something to say. It’s very easy to give up, but my motto is, if you say no to me, that’s where it all begins.

Riccardo Tisci, an old friend of yours, designed the costumes for your opera. Is he your alter ego?

When I met Riccardo, I immediately saw he was a true artist, an original, not a follower. I was lucky enough to take part in one of his memorable runway shows in New York, and I understood that fashion is far more stressful than art. I love Riccardo, and I admire the way he bounced back from Givenchy to Burberry. For my opera, I gave him complete artistic freedom. It was his idea to create seven servants’ costumes, because the last person with Maria Callas was her maid, Bruna, to whom she left everything. There’s also the scene where Willem Dafoe is in a golden dress, whereas I’m wearing a man’s suit – Riccardo is familiar with these gender games. I’m also very happy to have worked with Nabil Elderkin, an excellent director of music videos. I wanted the films used in my opera to resemble music videos. They’re used both as backdrops and at the front of stage – I wanted to create continuous tableaux with the sets and filmed images. I must also mention Marko Nikodijevic, who composed the music, creating the transitions between the seven tragic arias sung in her day by Callas. And also Petter Skavlan, who wrote the libretto with me. Operas generally last four hours and are very boring. Mine lasts one hour thirty-six. I also wanted to appeal to the new generations, who follow my work, which makes me very proud.

7 Deaths of Maria Callas, 1–4 September 2021, Opéra national de Paris, www.operadeparis.fr