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Marina Abramovic [1946-0] Serbian

Rank: 101
Artist, Performance artist

Marina Abramović is a Serbian performance artist based in New York. Her work explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind.

Experience, Happiness, Relationship, Society, Amazing, Anniversary, Attitude, Beauty, Best, Death, Family, Fear, Food, Future, Marriage, Men, Respect, Sad, Technology, Wedding, Women

Quote	Tags	Rank
When I was 14, I thought I looked terrible. I wore these typical Slavic shoes with metal bottoms so you could always hear me coming and this really ugly princess skirt and blouse with the top button closed. I had a boy haircut, a baby face covered with pimples, and a really big nose.		101
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.	Best	102
People have so much pain inside them that they're not even aware of.		103
When you have a nonverbal conversation with a total stranger, then he can't cover himself with words, he can't create a wall.		104
You see, what is my purpose of performance artist is to stage certain difficulties and stage the fear the primordial fear of pain, of dying, all of which we have in our lives, and then stage them in front of audience and go through them and tell the audience, 'I'm your mirror; if I can do this in my life, you can do it in yours.'	Fear	105
In theater, blood is ketchup; in performance, everything's real.		106
People ask why there are so few female artists who succeed. It's because women are not ready to sacrifice as much as men. Women want a man, they want a family, they want to have children, they want to be loved, and to be an artist. And they can't; it's impossible.	Family, Men, Women	107
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.	Society	108
We are used to cleaning the outside house, but the most important house to clean is yourself - your own house - which we never do.		109
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.	Technology	110
We are actually living in a million parallel realities every single minute.		111
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.	Experience	112
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.	Anniversary, Marriage, Wedding	113
I believe so much in the power of performance I don't want to convince people. I want them to experience it and come away convinced on their own.	Experience	114
From the very early stage when I started doing performance art in the '70s, the general attitude - not just me, but also my colleagues - was that there should not be any documentation, that the performance itself is artwork and there should be no documentation.	Attitude	115
You know I very much respect Yvonne Rainer, she is very important - in American dance, the entire development of modern dance, and creating a wonderful physical language.	Respect	116
Performance has to be mainstream art. This is what I'm fighting for.		117
We always project into the future or reflect in the past, but we are so little in the present.	Future	118
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.		119
People put so much effort into starting a relationship and so little effort into ending one.	Relationship	120
Your ego can become an obstacle to your work. If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.	Death	121
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 just by changing your breathing.		122
Happiness comes from the full understanding of your own being.	Happiness	123
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.	Relationship	124
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.	Society	125
You know, James Franco is one of the most interesting figures because he has no rules. He breaks all the borders.		126
First of all, to do performance art, you really have to give 100 percent. I only know that I have to give 100 percent and then what happens, happens.		201
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.		202
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.	Beauty	203
So many artists say they're not aware of audience. For me is unbelievable.		204
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.		205
I really think there's no difference between an art piece made by a man and one made by a woman. Is it a good art piece or a bad art piece? Of course, if you're female, you're maybe dealing with different issues.		206
Every party is the same, too many people, too little food, and you have to wait around. I'm extremely bored with parties.	Food	207
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.	Happiness	208
I am only interested in the ideas that become obsessive and make me feel uneasy. The ideas that I'm afraid of.		209
I am not a therapist. I am not a spiritual leader. These elements are in the art: it is therapeutic, spiritual, social and political - everything. It has many layers. But art has to have many layers. If it doesn't, then forget it.		210
The hardest thing to do is something that is close to nothing.		211
I don't know anything about the afterlife because I haven't been there yet.		212
The world doesn't need an artist who shows reality as it is.		213
I think 21st century should be art without objects.		214
A powerful performance will transform everyone in the room.		215
When people ask me where I am from I never say, 'Serbia.' I always say, 'I come from a country that no longer exists.'		216
I hate kitchens. I don't understand these enormous American kitchens that take up half the living room and then they just order pizza.		217
I'm interested in utopian communities of the past. Many of them didn't survive and I'm examining closely the reasons they failed.		218
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.		219
We make such terrible mistakes with visual choices about beauty.		220
You can't choreograph death, but you can choreograph your funeral.		221
Artists can do whatever they want!		222
For me, performance is a holy ground. When I perform, I really step into a different state of consciousness.		223
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.		224
Because of technology, we don't develop telepathy. We don't use telepathy, but use, you know, the mobile phones. Why?		225
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.'	Amazing, Sad	226
Most of the time, the artists are not supposed to wear the fashion. It is always seen as a vanity. But I think I don't need to prove anything in my life. I can honestly say I love fashion and I can be many things at the same time.		301
I believe the artist has an obligation to society.		302
I hate studio. For me, studio is a trap to overproduce and repeat yourself. It is a habit that leads to art pollution.		303
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.		304
In every ancient culture, there are rituals to mortify the body as a way of understanding that the energy of the soul is indestructible.		305
All my inspiration comes from life. That's how it never stops, in a way.		306
For me, the most difficult piece is the one I'm about to make.		307
I don't do husbands. I don't do children.		308
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.		309
From the moment you are born, you could die. I think as an artist it is important to meditate on that.		310
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.		311
I'm interested in asking: 'What does feminine energy mean?' I don't have answers - I just have questions and interesting examples.		312
When Lady Gaga says I am her inspiration, you reach kids between 12 and 18. Now I am like a brand - jeans, Coca-Cola.		313
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.		314
To really change the way society thinks, you have to give your entire being to it until there's nothing left.		315
An artist should not fall in love with another artist.		316
The most revolutionary ideas are not sellable, but only mind-changing.		317
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.		318
Theater is something that as a performance artist you have to hate.		319
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.		320
I didn't get paid for performances most of my life. If I did, I would be billionaire now, and I'm not.		321
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.		322
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.		323
If you do performance and music, it's not performance as music.		324
In my work I have complete control, but about my life, I don't want to.		325
My grandmother, when she looked at American movies, she said, 'They're all the same. In the first scene somebody shoots somebody and then everybody makes phone calls.'		326
Even now, I have traces of the good little girl. When I am not performing, for instance, I am really very quiet and ordinary.		401
Artists should never think of themselves as an idol. Fame is a side effect of one's work.		402
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.		403
With classical ballet you are literally injuring yourself.		404
The public is in need of experiences that are not just voyeuristic. Our society is in a mess of losing its spiritual centre.		405
The only theatre I do is my own. Somehow, my life is the only life that I can play.		406
The mind is crazy thing. To be focused is the most difficult thing.		407
I believe that life is shorter; that is why we have to make experience longer.		408
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.		409
I want to dominate the man's world.		410
People in New York never have time for anything.		411
I am very clear that I am not a feminist. It puts you into a category and I don't like that.		412
An artist has to look at the future, to see what we can do better.		413
Cancer is an emotional disease.		414
Americans don't like European movies.		415
In America, everyone's always hiding their age.		416
I test the limits of myself in order to transform myself, but I also take the energy from the audience and transform it.		417

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