Interview with the famous artist Marina Abramovic

In their performances the early 1970's famous Serbian artist Marina Abramovic (Marina Abramović) played a bloody game in which she had to very quickly thrust a knife between outstretched fingers, lay in the center blazing five-pointed star, eating pills, which caused her seizures, and allows viewers to do with it whatever they want (someone even put a gun to her temple).

But her A new exhibition in Madrid Gallery La Fabrica is not so extreme. The exposition, which is called "Kitchen. Dedication of St. Therese "are portraits of the artist, made by Italian photographer Marco Anell (Marco Anelli). In these pictures Abramovich is preparing, meditating, and (with a special lift system) takes off and hangs from the ceiling in the kitchen arts center Laboral (Gijon, Spain), whose building was supposed to be an orphanage. The creation of these works, partly reminiscent of the works of Caravaggio and Zurbaran, artist inspired by the works of St. Teresa of Avila, a nun who lived in the XVI century. According to rumors, Teresa, has the ability to levitate, not only within the walls of the church - one day (to her great displeasure) she managed to rise into the air, even in your own kitchen, while cooking soup. Another theme of the exposition are the memories of a difficult childhood, held in Serbia. Here is what "Grandma art performance" in the interview to Dazed Digital.

's childhood. «I have a theory: the worse you childhood, the better your art - if you are truly happy, then you do not get a good product. My parents were careerists, sought to succeed in politics. They are both after the war were declared national heroes. They had no desire to engage the child, and they gave me my grandmother. Once, I waited for my grandmother, when she prayed in church. There I saw a font - the capacity in which it was necessary to dip your fingers before you cross. I thought that if I drink all the water, the camp of the saints. I was six years old. I stood on a chair and drank the water. I only became ill. As I did not become a saint. In general, all my childhood I spent in the kitchen. The kitchen was the center of my universe. There, I told my grandmother my dreams, and she told me stories. There we devote to each other in all the secrets. It was a meeting place and the interpenetration of the everyday and spiritual ».

On retrospective exhibition at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which will be presented a new performance entitled" The presence of the artist ", which will last for 600 hours. « [I'll be in the museum] for seven and a half hours every day and ten hours on Fridays. The only good news - is that on Tuesday I will have a day off. On Tuesdays, the museum is closed ».

a meeting with representatives of law and order, to which she had to walk almost every day because of the fact that some of their famous performances, which will again show at MoMA, she performed without clothes. « In 1977, it is not perceived as a problem, but now, apparently, perceive. Why? What am I doing wrong, why anyone would object to nudity? In America, somehow accidentally shown on television nipple Janet Jackson, and then talked about it so much in all gears, as if this is the most important news is more important than the war in Iraq. This should not be ».

The fact that her exhibition at the MoMA will show that the art of performance - is also part of the mainstream. « I have a feeling that I guinea pig. People always perceive performance as entertainment. Opens some kind of show, you call and say: "Can you speak at the opening with a performance?" You agree and speak, but no one's looking at you, all drinking, fun ... The performance should not be so, this attitude must change " .

about his art. «My goal - to raise the spirit of the spectator».

about Spain. «I like to visit Spain, so it seems to me that my culture is something like the Spanish. Everything is built on emotion, on the melodrama. And in Spain is bullfighting, I love corrida ».

Dazed Digital: Tell us about the performance" The presence of the artist "[ Abramovich will be sitting at the table and silently look at the audience, who can sit in front of her, as they want]. Will this performance take place in an empty room?

Marina Abramovic: Yes, we always start with the fact that we remove all objects that can be distracting. I think the table can also be removed. See.

DD: You set a time frame in order to test himself on the strength?

MA: Absolutely. Performance at the MoMA will last 600 hours. Nothing like I have not yet done. I am so excited. But I had 10 hours of performances, so I know it I am able to.

DD: Once you within 17 hours were related to hair with (former lover. - AI.) Ulaem (under performance in 1977 "The relationship in time») ...

MA: The performance was 16 hours, then came the audience, and we continued. Energy, which shares with you the audience, helps you hold on to the end.

DD: In his writings Sainte Therese says that divine power is sometimes impossible to resist. If you could choose any one performance, in which this force is totally obsessed by you, what would you choose?

MA: « The house overlooking the ocean "(a performance in which the artist lived for 12 days available for public viewing" room ", hanging on the wall of the gallery. All this time she does not speak or eat. - AI . ). With this performance, I felt so enlightened. After him, my thoughts were so clear. I could not "turn off" this feeling. I felt so clean. I did not want to eat, and how to say ... Food passed straight through me. You get this enlightenment, this energy, but what to do next? It can kill you.

article prepared by Julia Maksimova, AI

Source: dazeddigital.com