104+ Marina Abramovic Quotes On Performance, Endurance And Provocative

Marina Abramovic is a Serbian performance artist who is widely recognized for her groundbreaking work in the field of performance art. Her works often explore the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body and the possibilities of the mind. Abramovic is considered one of the most influential living artists and her works have been exhibited in major museums and galleries around the world. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Marina Abramovic on love, performance, endurance.

Top 10 Marina Abramovic Quotes

1. A great artist has to be ready to fail.
2. If we go for the easy way, then we never change.
3. 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.
4. The only thing I have learned is to find strength in yourself. No one can help you, no one can do anything for you, you have to do the work yourself.
5. To me the pain and the blood are merely means of artistic expression.
6. 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.
7. When you're 50, the best thing to do is dance the Argentinean tango.
8. The most revolutionary ideas are not sellable, but only mind-changing.
9. When you have a nonverbal conversation with a total stranger, then he cant cover himself with words, he cant create a wall.
10. Television is completely another medium. For me, Lady Gaga and HBO are bringing us to mass culture.

Marina Abramovic Short Quotes

• Galás is a great artist with a very powerful voice.
• I don't know anything about the afterlife because I haven't been there yet.
• We're destroying the planet, and the planet rebels.
• One thing I learned from his holiness the Dali Lama is the importance of humor.
• I have a problem with being a hero, but that's another problem.
• We always want to do things the way we like, that's why we never change.
• I think if people raise their consciousness and find a purpose, everybody will be helped.
• I really like dark, politically incorrect humor.
• We make such terrible mistakes with visual choices about beauty.
• We always think of our own profit, but not in connection to others.

Marina Abramovic Quotes About Love

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. — Marina Abramovic

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

Because we never stop silently loving those who we once loved out loud — Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic Quotes About Performance

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

When I did "Seven Easy Pieces," I actually re-performed the performances of other artists. It was such difficult work because I had to really go through the documentation, look through the sources, to ask the witnesses who saw it. — 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

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

You know the movie "Rashomon" from [Takeshi] Kurosawa, when all the people in the forest see something different? Each performance was like that. — Marina Abramovic

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. — Marina Abramovic

Documentation is misleading, because the performance is dead. So the very early works were not documented at all. — Marina Abramovic

I am pure performance, and Robert Wilson is pure theater. — Marina Abramovic

When I first had a video camera to document a performance, it was in Sweden and I remember it was really crucial for me. — Marina Abramovic

Typically, the performance has a story - a beginning, the crescendo and the end. — Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic Famous Quotes And Sayings

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. — Marina Abramovic

The body has an enormous power of healing, if you really believe you are going to be healed, you're going to be healed. If you really believe you're going to die, you're going to die. If you apply this kind of method to everything, then there is hope. — Marina Abramovic

If you are really true to yourself and really follow your intuition in the most rigorous way, there is a moment that becomes universal, that reaches everybody. That’s the real magic of Björk-she teaches us the courage to be ourselves. — 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

What you get is the opening of your mind. I'm not preaching any new religion; I'm ritualizing everyday activities. You drink the water. You count the rice. You sit in Crystal Cave. You lie in Levitation Chamber. You push yourself to a new level. — 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 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. — 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

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

There are two kinds of loss of hope, one is the feeling when your pulse slows down and you are going to die, and there's nothing else left. The other loss of hope is when you're living in a country which becomes insecure, and you don't know what the future is. That's existential. — Marina Abramovic

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. — Marina Abramovic

Dali Lama said, 'when you open the heart of the person with humor, you can tell him the most truth. But if you tell him truth without humor, the heart closes.' — Marina Abramovic

You go to India and you see the poorest village somewhere in the middle of India. And the poor family is happier than any rich billionaire in this country because of spirituality. — Marina Abramovic

My work is immaterial. It's not painting, it's not sculpture, it's emotions. I'm giving you something to experience yourself. — Marina Abramovic

If you look at the lives of artists, sitting in nature, painting, having the freedom. I think it's over. I think we're living in such a difficult moment of human development. Artists have more responsibility than ever before. — Marina Abramovic

In every ancient culture, there are rituals to mortify the body as a way of understanding that the energy of the soul is indestructible. — Marina Abramovic

I serve like a bridge. I go to other cultures, learn, put myself in different situations and learn as much as I can, and then go to Western cultures to give. I'm doing this bridging all the time. — Marina Abramovic

We don't have politicians with dignity and morals. We never have, not since [Nelson] Mandela and [Mahatma ] Gandhi. It's really rare. — 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

I have always staged my fears as a way to transcend them. — Marina Abramovic

I didn't give any instruction to the video, because it was a new medium. I didn't know what to tell him; it was so young. I did the piece and immediately after the piece, I wanted to see the material. — Marina Abramovic

There has been evolution in my work. In the beginning I was very much busy with the physical body and the limits of the physical body but that somehow naturally led me to the mental body and how I could deal with that. Stillness is so much harder, especially for three months. It was a big challenge. As a performer it is the most difficult experience one can have. And the interactive experience with the public made it even harder. — 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

There's nothing more tragic than artists from the 70s still doing art from the 70s. — Marina Abramovic

Art comes from life, not from the studio — 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

I think the role of artists in the past was very different. Artists had less responsibility in many ways. — 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

People ask me what book politicians should read. They should read the life of Mahatma Gandhi. — Marina Abramovic

I had such an intense relationship to every person. I still see people on the street and we lock eyes, and say "Oh my god!" and we just kiss and stay like that and sometimes cry. — 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

Zooming in, zooming out. I was shocked. I said, "Let's erase this right now, put the camera behind the stage and I'll do the performance just for the camera." He set up everything and I told him to go outside and smoke a cigarette. Come back when I finish. Don't touch the camera. This was the way how I've done most everything after that. — Marina Abramovic

I never say Serbia. I always say I come from a country that no longer exists. — Marina Abramovic

It was incredible, Lady Gaga came to see the piece. She didn't sit with me, but it was all atwitter. Every single kid from 12 to 18 ran to see Lady Gaga and then Lady Gaga left and they stayed. And they stayed another day another day and it created a completely different culture, a different audience that I never had before. — Marina Abramovic

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

Talking about [Donald] Trump, there's nothing wrong with Trump. He's who he is. It's wrong with us, who let him [win]. That's what's wrong. It's not that he's going to change, but the people who think like him. — Marina Abramovic

Western culture has more need because they're so much more degenerated. They're so much more hurt, and misbalanced completely. — 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

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

That's something that I'm trying to do in my work, to send a message to western people. They're the ones who are completely disconnected. — Marina Abramovic

I'm talking about intellectually and emotionally challenging, but at the same time it's actually not that challenging. So there's this dichotomy. — Marina Abramovic

Most people are more comfortable with what is familiar. I’ve spent my life doing the opposite. — Marina Abramovic

The complete absence of the story - that was the best thing about this whole thing, because you know that nothing's going to happen and everything's going to happen. It's just the gaze. You create your own zone. — Marina Abramovic

My memoirs are full of humor, I had to change jokes because it was a little too dark. — Marina Abramovic

If we consider art as oxygen in our society, we have to deliver this oxygen. — Marina Abramovic

In my work I have complete control, but about my life, I don't want to. — Marina Abramovic

Once, Picasso was asked what his paintings meant. He said, “Do you ever know what the birds are singing? You don’t. But you listen to them anyway.” So, sometimes with art, it is important just to look. — 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

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

We wanted to prove that I am not just a provocateur, as the television said [referring to a Fox news clip shown in the film]. It's challenging, but it's not just challenging. — 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

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

But what is art other than revealing human nature? — Marina Abramovic

I made a tape recording of a bridge collapsing and I wanted to play it suddenly and very loudly when people were walking over a big bridge in Belgrade. The council forbid it. Their imagination is tiny; mine is big. I want always to shake everything up. — Marina Abramovic

I say we don't need art in nature, because it's so perfect without us. We need it in the cities. But the cities have absolutely lost their own center. They think having ten cars and a big bridge is the way to happiness. It's not. — Marina Abramovic

Americans aren't accepting of black humor, it's terrible. — Marina Abramovic

I've always asked myself since I was young, what is my duty on this planet? What am I there for? Just to hang around? Everybody must have some purpose. — 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

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

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

I believe that life is shorter; that is why we have to make experience longer. — Marina Abramovic

I had so much fear of blood, and the first thing I did was to cut myself to see what happens. That's the only way to rebuild yourself. — Marina Abramovic

When you have so much pain, you think you will lose consciousness. If you say to yourself, ‘So what, lose consciousness,’ the pain goes away. — Marina Abramovic

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

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

Television is completely another medium. — 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

I realise the power of art that does not hang on the walls of galleries. — Marina Abramovic

Life Lessons by Marina Abramovic

1. Marina Abramovic's work emphasizes the importance of presence and connection, encouraging viewers to be mindful of their own physicality and the physicality of those around them.
2. Her performances often explore themes of vulnerability and the power of the human body, demonstrating that art can be used to create meaningful and powerful experiences.
3. Her work serves as a reminder that art can be used to explore and challenge our preconceptions of the world, and to create meaningful connections between people.