Marina Abramovic Quotes
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Artists should never think of themselves as an idol. Fame is a side effect of one's work.
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I am pure performance, and Robert Wilson is pure theater.
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Even now, I have traces of the good little girl. When I am not performing, for instance, I am really very quiet and ordinary.
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An artist has to look at the future, to see what we can do better.
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Television is completely another medium. For me, Lady Gaga and HBO are bringing us to mass culture.
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People put so much effort into starting a relationship and so little effort into ending one.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Typically, the performance has a story - a beginning, the crescendo and the end.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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My memoirs are full of humor, I had to change jokes because it was a little too dark.
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When I first had a video camera to document a performance, it was in Sweden and I remember it was really crucial for me.
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Western culture has more need because they're so much more degenerated. They're so much more hurt, and misbalanced completely.
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I really like dark, politically incorrect humor.
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With classical ballet you are literally injuring yourself.
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The only way to change consciousness and the world around us is to start with yourself.
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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.
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Most people are more comfortable with what is familiar. I’ve spent my life doing the opposite.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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We always think of our own profit, but not in connection to others.
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