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Overview
Career
In her first performance in Edinburgh in 1973, Abramović explored elements of ritual and gesture. Making use of twenty knives and two tape recorders, the artist played the Russian game, in which rhythmic knife jabs are aimed between the splayed fingers of one's hand. Each time she cut herself, she would pick up a new knife from the row of twenty she had set up, and record the operation. Aft…
Early life, education and teaching
Abramović was born in Belgrade, Serbia, then part of Yugoslavia, on November 30, 1946. In an interview, Abramović described her family as having been "Red bourgeoisie." Her great-uncle was Varnava, Serbian Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Both of her Montenegrin-born parents, Danica Rosić and Vojin Abramović were Yugoslav Partisans during World War II. After the war, Abramović's parents were awarded Order of the People's Heroes and were given positions in the p…
Films
Abramović directed a segment, Balkan Erotic Epic, in Destricted, a compilation of erotic films made in 2006. In 2008 she directed a segment Dangerous Games in another film compilation Stories on Human Rights. She also acted in a five-minute short film Antony and the Johnsons: Cut the World.
Marina Abramović Institute
The Marina Abramović Institute (MAI) is a performance art organization with a focus on performance, long durational works, and the use of the "Abramovic Method".
In its early phases, it was a proposed multi-functional museum space in Hudson, New York. Abramović purchased the site for the institute in 2007. Located in Hudson, New York, the building was built in 1933 and has been used as a theater and community tennis center. The building was …
Collaborations
Abramović maintains a friendship with actor James Franco, who interviewed her for the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Franco visited Abramović during The Artist Is Present in 2010. The two also attended the 2012 Metropolitan Costume Institute Gala together.
In July 2013, Abramović worked with pop singer Lady Gaga on the singer's third album Artpop. Gaga's work with Abramović, as well as artists Jeff Koons and Robert Wilson, was displayed at a…
Controversies
Abramović sparked controversy in August 2016 when passages from an early draft of her memoir were released, in which—based on notes from her 1979 initial encounter with Aboriginal Australians—she compared them to dinosaurs and observed that "they have big torsos (just one bad result of their encounter with Western civilization is a high sugar diet that bloats their bodies) and sticklike legs". She responded to the controversy on Facebook, writing, "I have the greatest r…
Awards
• Golden Lion, XLVII Venice Biennale, 1997
• Niedersächsischer Kunstpreis, 2002
• New York Dance and Performance Awards (The Bessies), 2002
• International Association of Art Critics, Best Show in a Commercial Gallery Award, 2003