Marina Abramovic Quotes & Sayings

Some couples buy pots and pans when they move in together. Ulay and I began planning how to make art together. — Marina Abramovic

An artist should not fall in love with another artist. — Marina Abramovic

A powerful performance will transform everyone in the room. — Marina Abramovic

I'm interested in utopian communities of the past. Many of them didn't survive and I'm examining closely the reasons they failed. — Marina Abramovic

Why am I not feminist? Maybe because I come from a country where my mother ruled my life. I never felt in any way that I couldn't achieve what I want. — Marina Abramovic

I don't know anything about the afterlife because I haven't been there yet. — Marina Abramovic

Two worms lived in shit, a father and son. The father said to his son, "Look at the wonderful life we have. We have plenty to eat and plenty to drink, and we are protected from outside enemies. We have nothing to worry about." The son said to his father, "But father, I have a friend who lives in an apple. He also has plenty to eat, plenty to drink, is protected from outside enemies, and, he smells good. Can we live in an apple instead?" "No, we can't," replied the father. "Why?" said the son. "Because, my son, the shit is our country. — Marina Abramovic

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. — Marina Abramovic

I am obsessive always, even as a child. On one side is this strict orthodox religion, on the other is communism, and I am this little girl pulled between the two. It makes me who I am. It turns me into the kind of person that Freud would have a field day with, for sure. — Marina Abramovic

I am only interested in the ideas that become obsessive and make me feel uneasy. The ideas that I'm afraid of. — Marina Abramovic

For me, the most difficult piece is the one I'm about to make. — Marina Abramovic

When you have a nonverbal conversation with a total stranger, then he can't cover himself with words, he can't create a wall. — Marina Abramovic

If we go for the easy way, then we never change — Marina Abramovic

People have so much pain inside them that they're not even aware of. — Marina Abramovic

The only way to change consciousness and the world around us is to start with yourself. — Marina Abramovic

To control the breathing is to control the mind. With different patterns of breathing, you can fall in love, you can hate someone, you can feel the whole spectrum of feelings by changing your breathing. — Marina Abramovic

When you're 50, the best thing to do is dance the Argentinean tango. — Marina Abramovic

In real life, you just work for the ordinary self, but in the front of audience you become the superself. That's a completely different thing. — Marina Abramovic

Sometimes people are ashamed to talk about these things, but I know so many people who would never throw away their old shitty T-shirts or pullovers that are falling apart because of the comfort they get from those clothes. Everybody is vulnerable. — Marina Abramovic

The brother of my grandfather was the patriarch of the Orthodox Church and revered as a saint. So everything in my childhood is about total sacrifice, whether to religion or to communism. This is what is engraved on me. This is why I have this insane willpower. My body is now beginning to be falling apart, but I will do it to the end. I don't care. With me it is about whatever it takes. — Marina Abramovic

I'm interested in asking: 'What does feminine energy mean?' I don't have answers - I just have questions and interesting examples. — Marina Abramovic

True love for whatever you are doing is the answer to everything. — Marina Abramovic

We make such terrible mistakes with visual choices about beauty. — Marina Abramovic

We are always in the space in-between ... all the spaces where you are not actually at home. You haven't arrived yet ... This is where our mind is the most open. We are alert, we are sensitive, and destiny can happen. We do not have any barriers and we are vulnerable. Vulnerability is important. It means we are completely alive and this is an extremely important space. This is for me the space from which my work generates. — Marina Abramovic

People in New York never have time for anything. — Marina Abramovic

You create a friendship on a level that you've never done before. The basic kind of experience is to basically give love to total strangers all the time, and that really changed everything in me. And this piece transformed me more than any other one before. I saw my entire life differently. What do I have to do? What is my passion on this planet? I'm much more focused than I ever was before. — Marina Abramovic

It's okay that we're not perfect. It's okay that we all have problems. It's okay to cry, to show emotions. — Marina Abramovic

Art comes from life, not from the studio — Marina Abramovic

From the moment you are born, you could die. I think as an artist it is important to meditate on that. — Marina Abramovic

Happiness comes from the full understanding of your own being. — Marina Abramovic

In the performer's body, you don't care how you look. It doesn't matter if you're old, fat, beautiful, or ugly. It doesn't change anything. The only thing is your charisma and how you express your idea. — Marina Abramovic

One of the most wonderful things for me is to watch somebody else perform, where I am the audience - I love this more than ever. — Marina Abramovic

Your ego can become an obstacle to your work. If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity. — Marina Abramovic

We are actually living in a million parallel realities every single minute. — Marina Abramovic

People put so much effort into starting a relationship and so little effort into ending one. — Marina Abramovic

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. — Marina Abramovic

If you're a baker, making bread, you're a baker. If you make the best bread in the world, you're not an artist, but if you bake the bread in the gallery, you're an artist. So the context makes the difference. — Marina Abramovic

Because of technology, we don't develop telepathy. We don't use telepathy, but use, you know, the mobile phones. Why? — Marina Abramovic

You know, art is very emotional business. But mostly it becomes not emotional, the fabric of commodity. It becomes business. It becomes so many different things. Because we forgot there was emotions involved. — Marina Abramovic

For me, performance is a holy ground. When I perform, I really step into a different state of consciousness. — Marina Abramovic

A great artist has to be ready to fail. — Marina Abramovic

Performance has to be mainstream art. This is what I'm fighting for. — Marina Abramovic

The experience I learned was that ... if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed ... I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation. — Marina Abramovic

I think communication starts when words are not present at all ... I think we put so much emphasis on language, actually silence is so much more important. — Marina Abramovic

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. It was rainy. It was all wrong. And I was thinking, 'God, she loved life so much.' — Marina Abramovic

Once you live in New York, you can't live anywhere else. Living in Paris is like going in slow motion. It's so bourgeois. I get so bored. — Marina Abramovic

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'are fascinated by you, but only for a little while. And then they want to change you and crush you. And then they leave. So, lots of lonely hotel rooms, my dear. — Marina Abramovic

Today, our attention is less than the television advertisement. We're looking at six or seven problems constantly. We're living in the disturbed societies of cities. I think modern technology is one of the worst things human beings have invented. — Marina Abramovic

I really don't like art where you need to know so much theory to understand. If the theory is removed, it doesn't do anything. That means that this work is an illustration of theory, and I don't believe in the power of the work itself. — Marina Abramovic

You know, everyone is always talking about plastic surgery, or the technology, what to do. I really think it's important to help yourself with the technology if you want to feel better, but I am absolutely against any kind of monstrous cuts of the body, lifting that is beyond recognition, this kind of stuff. — Marina Abramovic

I had a very difficult relationship with my mother. She used to wake me up in the middle of the night if I wasn't sleeping straight and was messing up the sheets. Now when I stay in hotels I sleep so straight they don't even think I've used the bed. — Marina Abramovic

We are used to cleaning the outside house, but the most important house to clean is yourself - your own house - which we never do. — Marina Abramovic

Being an artist is not easy - I have always said that to the students I have taught over the years. It's a huge sacrifice. — Marina Abramovic

I am very clear that I am not a feminist. It puts you into a category and I don't like that. — Marina Abramovic

I want to dominate the man's world. — Marina Abramovic

I had to leave some traces. In the beginning, I would give complete instructions to the photographer. In the '70s, people would come to photograph your work and you would just end up with this crazy material that had nothing to do with your work; maybe I'd pick up two or three photographs that were the closest to the idea. This is why when you look at the '70s, you see much less documentation and really bad material. The material will become misleading to what the piece was. — Marina Abramovic

To me the pain and the blood are merely means of artistic expression. — Marina Abramovic

Immaterial art is the strongest because there's no obstacle; there's just energy, and I believe in energy. — Marina Abramovic

To really change the way society thinks, you have to give your entire being to it until there's nothing left. — Marina Abramovic

Americans don't like European movies. — Marina Abramovic

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. So to me it is really important to live in what I call the spaces in-between. Bus stations, trains, taxis or waiting rooms in airports are the best places because you are open to destiny, you are open to everything and anything can happen. — Marina Abramovic

I used to have a recurring dream where I was at a party in a country house, surrounded by the same people each evening. Everyone would be singing and dancing and after a while I came to know the people; though, of course, they never really existed. — Marina Abramovic

I think 21st century should be art without objects. — Marina Abramovic

The hardest thing to do is something that is close to nothing. — Marina Abramovic

It's very important that young artists push boundaries, because sometimes you have this urge to do something - like the impulsive and dangerous urges I had as a child - and if you don't follow through with it you might miss out on a developmental experience. — Marina Abramovic

Talking about performance is such a strange thing because it's so immaterial. We are talking about soft matter. We are talking about something that is invisible. You can't see it. You can't touch it. You just can feel it. — Marina Abramovic

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. — Marina Abramovic

An artist has to look at the future, to see what we can do better. — Marina Abramovic

The function of the artist in a disturbed society is to give awareness of the universe, to ask the right questions, and to elevate the mind. — Marina Abramovic

With classical ballet you are literally injuring yourself. — Marina Abramovic

Artists should never think of themselves as an idol. Fame is a side effect of one's work. — Marina Abramovic

You know how you feel somebody looking at you, and you turn, and somebody actually is? It's the same at an art gallery. You're looking at one portrait, turn around, and there is a work of art directly behind you. Because it's all energy. Every single thing has energy. — Marina Abramovic

I don't do husbands. I don't do children. — Marina Abramovic

I test the limits of myself in order to transform myself, but I also take the energy from the audience and transform it. — Marina Abramovic

There are so many rules in the art world. I don't like rules and I break them all the time. I don't care if people think I'm overexposed. What I care about is if I'm going to run out of energy. Overexposure is only a problem if you are drained of energy and cannot come up with new ideas. Every artist has to recognize that and know when to stop for a moment. — Marina Abramovic

If you see a Renaissance body, this is completely ugly in this time. Everybody has to be skinny. But the Renaissance body with incredible flow of the meat everywhere, it was beauty. — Marina Abramovic

Every party is the same, too many people, too little food, and you have to wait around. I'm extremely bored with parties. — Marina Abramovic

Cancer is an emotional disease. — Marina Abramovic

I just want to create situations where people forget time. — Marina Abramovic

When people ask me where I am from I never say, 'Serbia.' I always say, 'I come from a country that no longer exists.' — Marina Abramovic

Through performance, I found the possibility of establishing a dialogue with the audience through an exchange of energy, which tended to transform the energy itself. I could not produce a single work without the presence of the audience, because the audience gave me the energy to be able, through a specific action, to assimilate it and return it, to create a genuine field of energy. — Marina Abramovic

Television is completely another medium. For me, Lady Gaga and HBO are bringing us to mass culture. — Marina Abramovic

The mind is crazy thing. To be focused is the most difficult thing. — Marina Abramovic

Woody Allen has a wonderful line: 'Today I'm a star. What will I be tomorrow? A black hole?' That's very important to know - that you have the moment, then you lose the moment. You have to see your chances, you have to take them, and you also have to see when you don't have chances to take. — Marina Abramovic

Don't even ask me why. I do not know, I have no answer to this insane behaviour. — Marina Abramovic

Even now, I have traces of the good little girl. When I am not performing, for instance, I am really very quiet and ordinary. — Marina Abramovic

Performance is there, and if you are not there in that moment it happened, it just stays in the memory. It's so immaterial and something this immaterial is very difficult to collect. Its difficult to buy, its how we can buy immaterial art. — Marina Abramovic

In every culture, [there are those] shamans or medicine men who endured incredible physical pain, because it's a door opening to the subconsciousness. And the way we can actually control the pain
it's how to control everything. This is the key. — Marina Abramovic

You know, James Franco is one of the most interesting figures because he has no rules. He breaks all the borders. — Marina Abramovic

So many artists say they're not aware of audience. For me is unbelievable. — Marina Abramovic

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. She edited out, maybe burned, every single photograph where I'm naked. — Marina Abramovic

I hate studio. For me, studio is a trap to overproduce and repeat yourself. It is a habit that leads to art pollution. — Marina Abramovic

I notice if I'm too fat or if I'm too ugly or there's skin hanging or whatever. When my clothes start not fitting, I get really self-conscious about what I eat. — Marina Abramovic

All my inspiration comes from life. That's how it never stops, in a way. — Marina Abramovic

My new work deals with emptying my body: 'Boat emptying, stream entering.' This means that you have to empty the body/boat to the point where you can really be connected with the fields of energy around you. I think that men and women in our Western culture are completely disconnected from that energy, and in my new work I want to make this connection possible. — Marina Abramovic

For the first three months, I place each student at a table with a thousand pieces of white paper and a trash can underneath. Every day they have to sit at the table for several hours and write ideas. They put the ideas they like on the right side of the table; the ones they don't like, they put in the trash. But we don't throw out the trash. After three months, I only take the ideas from the trash can. I don't even look at the ideas they liked. Because the trash can is a treasure trove of things they're afraid to do. — Marina Abramovic

You can't choreograph death, but you can choreograph your funeral. — Marina Abramovic

The world doesn't need an artist who shows reality as it is. — Marina Abramovic

My mother and father had a terrible marriage. They celebrated their wedding anniversary one year with their friends. Why did they celebrate? Maybe because they had lasted so many years without killing each other. — Marina Abramovic

When Lady Gaga says I am her inspiration, you reach kids between 12 and 18. Now I am like a brand - jeans, Coca-Cola. — Marina Abramovic