My Interview with Marina Abramović

About Beauty and Pain and Her Roots in the Balkans

Beauty and pain are the poles in the universe of Marina Abramović. The performance artist had a huge retrospective in Amsterdam and launched a beauty line. In my conversation with her, she explains why she doesn't consider herself a feminist and why she is afraid of nothing—except sharks.

Her works touch on many levels, whether she is eating an entire onion with its skin, in front of the camera or allowing exhibition visitors to injure her with razor blades. Throughout her decades-long career, performance artist Marina Abramović has repeatedly made close contact with her audience. Recently, she launched a beauty line and made headlines with her statements about the Barbie movie and Kim Kardashian. During an interview at the Stedelijk Museum office in Amsterdam, the 77-year-old is warm and initially seems more interested in her interviewer than in discussing her life and work. At the start of the conversation, she drinks a ginger shot. "Do you know ginger? It gives an incredible amount of energy."

So I would like to talk with you about your art …

Marina Abramović: … so where do you come from?

I am from Germany, but originally from Turkey.

Marina Abramović: You know that we, Ex-Yugoslavia, being 500 years under your regime?

I know. And I am sorry about that.

Marina Abramović: My grandmother made only Turkish coffee. 500 years are such a long time, so you absorb the culture. My grandmother was completely like a Turkish mama. So I`m very close to this country.

I love the Balkan culture.

Come on. We are connected, historically.

You are one of the most important artists of our time…

Marina Abramović: …. oh my God. I must drink a snip of water after that statement.

Wait, wait… (she is laughing)

… so on the one side there is your art performance, and on the other side there is the interpretation of it…

Marina Abramović: …and on the other side there is also projection on it.

True. And the most common interpretation is that you are pushing your limits, emotionally and physically.

Marina Abramović: I was very lucky to find the body as my main subject very early in my career, after I was painting and working with sound. And immediately I found out: there were always the three biggest problems of humans: Suffering, pain, and the temporality that we are all going to die. Different artists deal with these subjects in so many ways. Books been written, films been made, and the paintings been done. And I staged different moments of my life in front of the audience, that I can push my limits to see how far I can go in endurance, how far I can go to get rid of fear and of pain, so I do not fear the pain anymore, that I can face mortality. We create our own limits all the time because we are afraid of everything. And I am kind of fed up with this attitude. I become the kind of mirror for the public. If I can do this, you can do this too. You should not be afraid of anything.

Is there anything that you fear?

Marina Abramović: I am afraid of sharks. When I was a kid, I would never go deep in the water. And even if I was told that there have never been sharks in this part of the sea, believed that sharks will know that I am out there, and they will come just for me anyway. I made this piece with Bob Wilson called Life and Death of Marina Abramovic, where I staged even my funeral. And I remember that a very famous American psychiatrist came to my dressing room afterwards, and said to me: “Okay, what I just saw now on the stage, you saved yourself 25 years from very expensive therapy.” I share all my fears with you on the stage. But I never do this at home. I will never cut myself at home. Because firstly I don`t like pain. Secondly, I don`t have any reason. I suffer from pain when I really have something to say. In private life I never like any pain.

Only for the sake of art.

Marina Abramović: That`s different.

In your autobiography, you`re talking about the violence of your mom and your aunt. Can art be a way of pursuing freedom from pain?

Marina Abramović: Incredibly. It`s unbelievable. Art is the door to freedom and the different way of thinking about life. All the pain I have experienced as a child and later on, I could put into art, and it turns into a message, and it turns into your work. And it is beautiful because it made me free from all the stuff happened to me. If I stage it and then I share it with everybody else, I don`t have any pain anymore.

Now I`m 77, my dear. I have a pain in my leg. But I don`t care. I can deal with pain. And I´m happy. I was not like this when I was at your age. And I would never change to that age because that was so much suffering for no reason.

A lot of people are going through pain when they were children. But they do not perform it in a risky and painful way.

Marina Abramović: You do not become artist. I believe that you are born as an artist. You are or you are not. And I feel that I was born like that. I have a purpose. That is incredibly important. There are many people who do not have a strong desire to have a purpose. They are just okay with the normal daily life. I never was marriage material. I never wanted to have children. I did not want any of this shit like normal people. All I want to do is art all my life, and I`m still doing it. You see my generation dead or have Alzheimer or they don`t want to be artists anymore. And I´m still around.

Which role does your Balkan background play for you?

Marina Abramović: I was born in Balkan. Nobody can take Balkan away from me. I have been truly nomadic. I`ve been in every country in this world and almost entire planet. But I still have that Balkan thing. I visited the village of my father and there was only one house still there, everything was destroyed. There were three walls, and in the middle of the house, out of pure rock, there was this huge oak tree. I remember sitting there, just leaning on that tree, and said to me: “If this tree can come out of this rock with no earth,that`s the strength of my family of my culture. Then this is the reason why I can do anything.” And especially women in our culture, they are like warriors.

You have always resisted to call yourself a feminist.

Marina Abramovic: I`ve never been a feminist. I don`t want to be a feminist. I don`t want to be any ism. I don`t give a shit. I was strong anyway. We can create life in the stomach. But we give our control to men because we are so dependent from their love. But if everything collapses, women will take care of everything.

Push this to me. And let´s have some fruits. Can you also take one? (she is pointing to the fruits on the table, grabbing a mandarin and giving me also one)

It doesn`t matter who makes art: men, women, transgender, homosexual, lesbian, no gender, whatever is today, I don`t care. It`s about good art or bad art. Really, I am female this is power enough. But art doesn`t have any gender.

In your autobiography, you claim that as a young girl you did not consider yourself as beautiful, but you admired Brigitte Bardot. What does beauty mean for you today?

Marina Abramovic: When I was young I broke my nose on purpose, because I wanted the doctors to make me a nose like Brigitte Bardot. But such a small nose would be totally ridiculous on my face. Beauty comes from inside, from here (shows to her heart). I feel right now better about myself. I really felt ugly. I had a big nose and a baby face and need to wear big orthopaedic shoes. And when you feel like this, you radiate like that. But once you really start feeling good about yourself, you radiate beauty.

Do we women suffer our whole life because of beauty standards?

Marina Abramovic: Incredible. Look at these Retouching methods. In fashion magazines you see the model, and then you see the model in real life and asking yourself: “Excuse me, guys, who is that?”

An interview with you went viral on Instagram. You said Barbie is not my culture.

Marina Abramovic: It`s so funny. I just say exactly what I felt. Because honestly, I never had a Barbie. I was born 46. It`s just after the fucking war. We didn`t have even chewing gum.

The Barbie film is claimed to be a feminist film.

Marina Abramovic: Not for me.

In the same interview you said that you would not have dinner with Kim Kardashian a second time. Kim Kardashian went through a lot of plastic surgery, going through pain to look the way she believes it is beautiful. Masses of women do that nowadays.

Maria Abramovic: It is very interesting how the whole idea of the Twiggy and the culture in the 70s, 80s changed – when all the women must be super, super, you call skinny and its basically anorexic, really bulimic. And then during a time when Jennifer Lopez never showed her back, Kim Kardashian came and her booty became like another asset and it liberated so many women from that culture, especially Latin culture where women were ashamed of their curves. But right now she is more skinny than anybody. Did you see her lately? She goes back into this old fashion. The entire Kardashian family is an incredible mirror of American culture, such a mirror that we can even see through Kardashians, why Trump is going to win.

Can you explain a bit?

Marina Abramovic: Oh my God, I`m getting to bed with politics. Because well, it`s emptiness. It`s nothing in there. Nothing. It`s about gossip and kids, new clothes, and makeup. When I`m in America, I`m generally missing content. You come to European culture and it`s so different. I come the Slavic culture, which is about drama, melancholy and about suffering. You see it in literature, film, and art.

You have launched a wellness and skincare line. Is this another art performance?

Marina Abramovic: No, I met this doctor from Kazakhstan. She made these incredible products. Energy drops for the immune system, stuff that really works. She made them in Austria and Switzerland. I had a Lyme disease and she cured me from that, which is incurable. I wanted to help her and so I am promoting her products. But my generation criticized me immediately. Ah well, now she’s making beauty products. I will always be scandalous. When I started doing performances in the 70s, they want to put me in a mental hospital. The same performances are now in art museum collections.

You have ingredients like white bread in your face lotion.

Marina Abramovic: They are authentic products, and it works. I remember when I had infections, my grandmother cut half of an onion, burned it and put it on my wound. But this is something that is forgotten that we must re reinvent again. And I have been criticized. They say: She is completely crazy now. She is making white bread garlic serums whatever. But I really don`t care anymore. You always must do what you feel like to do. And I`ve been doing that all my life.

Thank you very much for this interview.

Marina Abramovic: You finished? Now ask me some question that you always wanted to ask.

What would you recommend to young woman?

That`s a really good question. Stop suffering from bullshit love stories because they make us so weak. I spent so much time being a broken heart. I am just thinking about this now. God, if I had the wisdom at your age, my life would be much more fun. It is always about falling in love with the wrong guy who we like to save. We never change anybody, by the way.

We also must stop being jealous on each other and really help other women. In the 50s and 60s the art galleries were owned mostly by women, and they showed only male artists which they slept with. And now they rediscovered female artists, but they are already dead or 100 years old.

Why?

Marina Abramovic: This is something that is century like this. It is competition. I believe in goodness and unconditional love.

Despite of your performance “Rhythm Zero”? People were hurting you for no reason.

Marina Abramovic: You must forgive. Maybe it`s to do with something they were hurt before and they are just repeating the pattern. It is complicated, it is not just black and white. But forgiveness is so important because that negative energy is the energy that heals you. You must let that negative energy out immediately from you. Out, out, out.

This interview was first published in German, in Die WELT am Sonntag.

Photos:

(1) Marina Abramović, The Hero, 2001. Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives. © Marina Abramović

(2) Marina Abramović, Four Crosses: The Evil (positive), 2019 (detail). Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives. © Marina Abramović

(3) Marina Abramović, The Artist is Present, 2010. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives. © Marina Abramović.
Photo: Marco Anelli

(4) Marina Abramović, The Hero, 2001. Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives. © Marina Abramović