I had difficult mother, difficult childhood like she had. She is Sagittarius like I am. I almost died from broken heart because of love. And she really did.
— Marina Abramovic
Good art is never made in studio. Good art I make in life.
After my performance 'The Artist is Present (2010)' at MoMA in New York, many scientists became interested in why so many people who sat across from me began to cry. I was incredibly moved by this experience also, and was very curious to know what happens in our brains when we spend time not talking, just looking at one another.
All the aggressive actions I do to myself I would never dream of doing in my own life - I am not this kind of person. I cry if I cut myself peeling potatoes. I am taking the plane, there is turbulence, I am shaking. In performance, I become, somehow, like not a mortal.
I grew up with my grandmother because my parents were making careers and didn't have much time for me. She was a highly religious Serbian Orthodox, spending most of her time in church. It's a great mix, and I use all these elements in my work.
I want people to come to me open and vulnerable. When they come to the gallery, they have to leave their watches, their computers, their Blackberrys, iPads, iPhones, because we are so incredibly used to technology, and I wanted to remove that.
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.
I'm not feminist, by the way. I am just an artist.
I hate repetition. Even when I am home and have to buy milk, I go a different way each time to avoid having a habit of anything. Habits are really bad.
One of my aims was to be paid as well as a plumber. Plumber was better-paid than any performance artist who was always doing this for free. It is so important to make a good living from art. You know, John Cage, until he was 60, he couldn't pay electricity.
I can explain my work to the cleaner or the president; it's all the same to me. I am very communist in this way.
It's so easy to do things you like. But then, the thing is, when you're afraid of something, face it; go for it. You become a better human being.
The entire aim of my work is to elevate the human spirit. We can put the human spirit down so easily.
When I taught art, I was always asked, 'How do you know you're an artist? What makes you an artist?' And to me, it's like breathing. You don't question if you breathe; you have to breathe. So if you wake up in the morning, and you have to realize an idea, and there's another idea, and another, maybe you are really an artist.
There's plenty of talented women. Why do men take over the important positions? It's simple. Love, family, children - a woman doesn't want to sacrifice all of that.
I test the limits of myself in order to transform myself, but I also take the energy from the audience and transform it.
I don't know anything about the afterlife because I haven't been there yet.
I change so many houses and places where I live; I change them like I change socks. I don't have this absolute, kind of, how you say, attachment. My brother, if he just has to go to holiday to sleep in different bed, for him it is a disaster. I can sleep under this table or in a five-star hotel; I don't care.
I have the greatest respect for Aborigine people, to whom I owe everything. The time I spent with members of the Pijantjatjara and Pintupi tribes in Australia was a transformative experience for me and one that has deeply and indelibly informed my entire life and art.
Yes, I believe stories are very important to all performances. The life story of the performer shapes their work, and the life stories of the audience alter how they receive the work, what they read into the performer.
In every ancient culture, there are rituals to mortify the body as a way of understanding that the energy of the soul is indestructible. The more I think about energy, the simpler my art becomes, because it is just about pure presence.
My mother and father were partisan national heroes: I learned sacrifice and discipline from them and that a private life is not as important as the message you want to leave.
When you have heartbreak, what's important is that you don't go halfway. Go all the way down. Don't take pills that keep you in limbo. Cry out all the feelings. Then your own energy for life will put you up again. You become stronger.
The only time I really feel tired and old is when I look back; I always like to look just in the front of me. I'll always feel like I didn't finish enough, such a short time is left, and there's still so much to do.
I always sent my mother all these huge books I made. When my mother died, I was cleaning her cupboard, and these big books were only 20 pages long.
Unconditional love with someone you've never met is a straightforward feeling that is so overwhelming and fulfilling.
I don't have tattoos, I have scars!
I've been criticized by my generation, artists from the '70s - and there's nothing more tragic than artists from the '70s still doing art from the '70s - because I blur all these borders between fashion and pop.
From a very early time, I understood that I only learn from things I don't like.
To be in a magazine when you're 20 is okay, but when you do it when you're 65, it's much more fun!
I had three abortions because I was certain that it would be a disaster for my work.
I give people a space to simply sit in silence and communicate with me deeply but non-verbally.
The big problem of our modern society is that we feel that we are separated from the nature. But it's just the opposite. We are interrelated and our DNA is the same. And only when human beings understand that, the nature will not be obstacle.
The most revolutionary ideas are not sellable, but only mind-changing.
If I'm not nervous, I'm nervous. You never know how people are going to receive the work.
Aborigines are not just the oldest race in Australia; they are the oldest race on the planet. They look like dinosaurs.
I am thrilled Lady Gaga has helped to teach her audience about long durational work and performance art.
I have always staged my fears as a way to transcend them.
I prepare a lot. For 'The Artist Is Present,' it took me a year to teach my body not to produce acids.
I have this exercise that I propose to everybody: Hug a tree and complain for a minimum 15 minutes. Be yourself, and do something that you really feel deeply.
I was friends with Susan Sontag the last four years of her life. She had this amazing charisma and so much energy, but she had a sad little funeral in Montparnasse in Paris.
I am plenty lonely in hotel rooms.
I don't think anyone does anything from happiness. Happiness is such a good state, it doesn't need to be creative. You're not creative from happiness, you're just happy. You're creative when you're miserable and depressed. You find the key to transform things. Happiness does not need to transform.
I face so much jealousy, and I am incredibly upset about it.
If you're a woman, it's almost impossible to establish a relationship. You're too much for everybody. It's too much. The woman always has to play this role of being fragile and dependent. And if you're not, they're fascinated by you, but only for a little while. And then they want to change you and crush you. And then they leave.
Of course I dream to have this perfect man who does not want to change me. And I'm so not marriage material, it's terrible. But my dream is to have those Sunday mornings, where you're eating breakfast and reading newspapers with somebody.
I hate studios. A studio is a black hole. I never use a studio to work. It's very artificial to go to a studio to get new ideas. You have to get new ideas from life, not from the studio. Then you go to the studio to realize the idea.
There are good artists that have children. Of course there are. They are called men.
To be a performance artist, you have to hate theatre. Theatre is fake... The knife is not real, the blood is not real, and the emotions are not real. Performance is just the opposite: the knife is real, the blood is real, and the emotions are real.
Time is an illusion. Time only exists when we think about the past and the future. Time doesn't exist in the present here and now.
