The Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović is one of the most influential and groundbreaking artists of our time. She is known for her confrontational and often physically and psychologically challenging works. Born in 1946 in Belgrade, Abramović has been a pioneer of performance art since the 1970s and has been credited with paving the way for a new generation of artists. She uses her body as a medium to explore the limits of the human experience and to push the boundaries of what is socially and culturally acceptable. Marina Abramović’s performances often involve prolonged periods of time, during which she invites the audience to interact with her. For example, in her famous work “The Artist is Present,” which was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2010, Abramović sat at a table for over 700 hours, silently facing the audience and inviting them to sit across from her. The piece was a powerful exploration of the relationship between performer and audience, and it highlighted the role of the artist as a mediator between the personal and the public. Abramović’s work is also known for its use of ritual and its references to Eastern spirituality. Her use of ritualistic elements such as fasting, meditation, and repetitive physical acts is intended to create a heightened state of awareness and to bring the audience into a deeper connection with the work. Marina Abramović has been the subject of solo exhibitions at important institutions including the Garage Art Center (Moscow), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), Whitney Biennial, Documenta (1977, 1982, 1992) and the Venice Biennale (1976, 1997, 2009).
