The Goddess of Art: Marina Abramovic

This looks so beautiful! Everyone into position. Come closer to

You know what is interesting, after 40 years of people thinking you are

insane and you should be put in mental hospital, you finally

actually get all this acknowledgements. Takes such a long

time to take you seriously. Right there, don't move. Welcome to the

arts portion of our programme. It is the Museum of Modern Art.

might raise your eyebrows, in addition to being high brow.

three pieces in particular that are nude, here is the first one, called

Imponderabillia, my Marina Abramovic. The name of the artist

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 121 seconds

Marina, her last name, Abramovic. My mother dressed me as a devil

when I was four-years-old for my first party ever. Everybody was

dressed very happy, princesses and cowboys, and I was looking so

miserable. A little kit with a very sad black devil dress with two

horns. I have no idea why she dressed me as a devil. I think that

marked my life. We recreated this image. Only 60 years later. After

this show, I literally put more attention to sex in my life. I have

to really look for T if I put advertising like that, do you think

that will attract some guys?! Semi-intellectual artist at the top

of her career, looking for a single male. So basically you are looking

at many Marinas. You are looking at the Marina who is product of the

two partisan parents, two national heroes, will power, any aim she put

in the front of her, and then right next to this one, you have the

other one, who is like a little girl, mother never gave her enough

love and very vulnerable, and unbelievably disappointed and sad.

And then there is another one, who has this kind of spiritual wisdom

and can go above all that. This is He's there, hello! Now we have to

Who is writing the text? That would be Klaus and his team. I like Times,

just to tell you and I like Russian, What we talked about making it

black and white yesterday. It will be colour actually. One time in my

life I like to show everything, what takes you to make art, how

much e-mails, how much correspondence, how much letters,

how much plane tickets, all the structure is enormous. What is

I have all six floors, which is a big deal. I feel pain in my back

already. This is the beginning. My early work. This work, it is

focusing on performance where Artist Is Present. It doesn't

include my sound pieces or objects with crystals, just performance,

pure performance. It's very radical. For me it's why this show in MoMA

is historical, to put the things in the right place. Because

performance has never been a regular form of art. It's been

alternative since I was born. I want to be a real form of art in

retrospect before I die. Let's start with the exhibition. You are

reperforming your own? No, I am making a new piece. One new piece?

One new piece, Artist Is Present. So I think your first performance

was also in museum in Belgrade, is that right? No, it's actually...

The element of sound is imminent in relation in movement when you were

driving a van around a square for 16 16 hours and shouting numbers

through a megaphone. Yes. substituted your persona with that

of a prostitute. You took psychoactive drugs to challenge

attitudes. You lay inside a wooden five-pointed star, set on fire and

fainted from the lack of oxygen. These pieces you have often been

threatened and threatened your own body. I know you are probably sick

of these questions, but I want to touch on it quickly. There is only

one question I didn't hear since ten years, why is this art. This

was the main question since I start this performance. I am now missing

it. Nobody asks me why it is not art. Maybe it is my age. Maybe they

finally get it. If you are alternative when you are young, 18

or 19, 20, and you are still alternative at 29 and alternative

at 30 and 40, and alternative at 50, excuse me, I am 63, I don't want to

be alternative any more. Many people think of her as The

Performance emerged in the '60s as a result of a challenge to painting.

Whatever it was, it was not A form of art where the medium is

the body. In the case of Marina, she used the human body to make

statements and sometimes be quite violent, can sometimes be

provocative. She is directly and boldly challenging an audience.

What is at the heart of her art works is the shared experience of

the audience and the performer. Many of Marina's works are

interventions. When she did rhythm 0 in Naples and people could use

the objects against her, it is like a Stanford Experiment, a scientific

experiment that reveals human nature. But what is odd is

revealing human nature. It is like a murder-mystery, like a Hitchcock

s she going to get murdered there, who is going in, who is walking out.

The veneer of civilisation is very thin. What's absolutely terrifying

is how quickly a group of people will become bestial if you give

them permission to do so. Some of Marina's early performances were

about that. It's playing with that edge of the knife, that allows her

to create the intensity of the performances that makes them

Basically, it is the work shop in the house and there's preparation

for the show in MoMA. My generation art is not performing any more.

Maybe one or two still left. It is my task to make history straight.

When I am asked to make a perspective on the performance work

in MoMA, I was thinking it would be important for me to let it go also

from my own ego and give five historical pieces to younger

Now they are coming and cooking the soup. She said something like we

are not going to eat or speak for three days. She said you will hate

me at the time but love me forever after and do what I want. Everybody

looks so worried. She wants us to fast for three days and she's

mentioned some other exercises that we will be doing. I am going with

my instincts on this, and it feels right to trust her. You can make

your last phone call. Last phone call. You will be free for three

days, it is amazing. What's happening. We will let you know

later. It is just a little bit different. They can take this

experience and do everything they want with their own life. But

probably they will hate me anyway. At least at the beginning. It is a

very simple structure. The whole idea is to slow down, to slow down

with your body and your mind, zero gravity, if possible. The first

ritual will be to wake up and do some simple exercises, like a

little jumping and a bit of the energy releasing. It is very simple.

Then we go to the river. Anybody who has a problem with nudity, take

a swimming suit, whatever you want, or naked, I don't care.

The purpose of this thing is that they have to perform three months,

which is very big kind of obligation. They have to create

their own charismatic space. For that you have to consider some

training. The proposition here is just empty yourself. Be able to be

in the present time. Put your mind here and now. There is something

emotional will happen. That is what we are looking for in this work. In

performance, you have to have emotional approach. It is a kind of

direct energy with the public and performer. If you are performing in

that way, that you are there in 100%, there is emotional moment

arrive to everybody. This is no way out. Everybody feels it. Artists

have to be warrior, have to have this determination and have to have

the stamina to conquer, not just new territory, but also to conquer

himself. And his weaknesses. So it doesn't matter what work you are

doing as an artist, the most important is from which state of

mind you are doing what you are doing. Performance is all about

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 121 seconds

Marina Abramovic The Artist Is Present means that from March 9th

to May 31st whenever you enter the mu Saddam Hussein during opening --

mu - museum, no matter what time, she will be present. I imagine more

like a film set. There is a human square of light. In the middle of

the square is placed a table and two chairs. It is so simple. It is

like nothing there, like artists sitting like a mountain, I want to

be like a rock there. And looking you in the eyes, you are talking

three months, every single day. If you are performing three months, it

is really performance become life itself. People don't understand the

hardest thing is to actually do something which is close to nothing.

It is demanding all of you, because there is no story to tell, no

objects to behind behind. There's nothing. Just your presence. You

have to rely on your own energy and nothing else. Seven-and-a-half

hours, six days a week, motionless. Wow. I have nothing to say. No

comment. Only respect. I could imagine it

being unbearable to sit there. She's going to try. I don't know

whether it's going to work. When she had this idea, I thought she's

going to kill herself. I said Marina, I don't know what I want to

have the responsibility of having given you the permission to do that.

Think about it for two days, and then she called me the next morning

and said "I can do that ". In the moment moment Klaus Biesenbach came

with the title of the show, The Artist Is Present, it was like a

Maybe I don't use it at all. count on you never using it. It's

like the whole idea of... Men don't get it. He doesn't want to deal

with reality. I think it's a brilliant solution. I have no idea

why I have to do it harder and harder. I can perfectly make

retrospective to people performing my piece. But why I have to do this,

this is my cross I am carrying. It is insane. God help me to finish

this one. When you are watching a Marina Abramovic performance, you

are engaging with her physical presence, which is very striking.

The clear evidence that she has a lot of physical stamina and

strength, which the public and its presence gives her, but clearly

physically, it is enate, she can take sitting still or doing very

little or whatever she's doing in the performance, for long periods

of time, which most people cannot. My parents were from the Tito time

in ex-Yugoslavia. I had such a terrible, real control at home,

which I hated. Everything was like discipline, schedule. I was trained

to be a soldier, literally. My mother would make me in the middle

of the night if my bed was not straight, I was sleeping too messy.

There was no love there. I never remember my mother kissing me or

holding me in any way. Later in my life I asked her why, she was so

surprised. She said "I didn't kiss you not to spoil you ". She really

didn't spoil me. But on the other side, it was the grandmother who

was loving and always there, and spiritual and spending all the time

in the church. I was with her as a child because most of them were who

had a career never had time for me. There is a mixture between

spirituality and discipline. Looking back it was very important

to me, and actually this is what I went to this bathroom in the

airport, and there was a fantastic discovery, the two pages with

illustrations, how to wash the hands by water and soap. "Come

lavare i mani con acqua e sapone". Brilliant.

Today we are here for the important Lorenzo Magnifico award, to Marina

Abramovic. Thank you. I need a microphone. And now you know I was

thinking to give a lecture and I don't feel on this occasion to give

a lecture. I would like to have a dialogue with the public and before

I do this, I I would like to read you my manifest. So my manifest, I

think I wrote really out of my heart, and it is also is actually

funny at the same time. But it's true. An artist should not lie to

himself or to others. An artist should not steal ideas from the

other artists. An artist should not compromise for themselves or in

regard to the art market. An artist should not kill another human being.

An artist should not make themselves into an idol. An artist

in relation to his love life. Love, amore. An artist should avoid

falling in love with another artist. An artist should avoid falling in

love with another artist. An artist should avoid falling in love with

The very first moment we met was when she came to Amsterdam. She was

to do a performance. I met her just before and said wow, the

performance was called Tomas Lips. It came down to she would cut a

pentagram in her stomach and must whip herself. I said no, maybe not.

Afterwards I started nursing her wounds. I didn't lick her wounds,

but I cared for the wounds and cleaned it and put something on it.

I think that was the crucial point. At the time we met, there was

immediately a fascination. Type- wise, personality-wise, the work we

had been doing, singularly, she and me. There was a recognition like

you have found a lost brother or sister. We were born on the same

day, November 30th, both Sagittarius, obvious. Destiny

brought us together. I really loved him, more than myself. For me, it

was when we started working together, this was forever, I was

thinking this is work and it will never stop. It was like two twins

connected with a body together. were lovers, we were friends, we

were performers, all at once. Our love was always on top of it.

I think Marina and Ulay's relationship is one of the great

love stories. Marina is very hard- core and she had met someone who

was equally prepared to go to any lengths for his art. That must have

impressed her enormously because she had met her equal.

When Marina and Ulay came together, they started their group of works

called the Relation Works. We would engage our bodies in a

confrontational way. We wanted to get to the point about male-female

conflicts, traumatic experiences about relations. Afterwards we were

Our 12 years that was intensive and as heavy and powerful as other

people's whole life, I guess. went through so many stages,

falling in love, having this relationship of 12 years. Now we

are talking 23 years that we were able first time ever to be under

the same roof. Ulay should be here at 2.00. The first time Ulay comes

in this specific apartment in New York, never upstate. They have been

separated for many years. We are Hello. How are you doing? Doing

fine. Dr Gilmour is a very special lady, psychoanalyst, she is very

strict. She told me emotionally I am not doing so bad. I should go

more into my childhood, looking into the patterns so not to repeat

the next relationship. I told her about Ulay and she thinks maybe it

is going to be easy. Let me have a glass of water. We both are in the

third act of our life. There's no other moment, to get closer and

somehow forgive each other, to really peacefully find OK, it was

really horrible and painful and hateful and everything else

together, but it was creative at the same time and we should just

forgive each other. Are you in the wrong building. This is my building.

What shall I call you, the grandmother of performance or the

diva of performance. I think I You are the one who sends the e-

mails. He is a young artist and a good one, too, from Torino, Davide.

If I can be of help, pleasure. If I can do something for her, pleasure.

Depends what, but speaking now, of course.

It is an amazing amazing place, are you often here? Pretty often, yes.

I would try to do the same. Maybe she still loves me, I don't know.

We will figure out tomorrow something. Maybe put a thing round

her teeth. That means to make Are you nervous about this show?

Incredibly nervous. If I am not nervous nervous I am nervous why I

am not nervous. Yoo are you going to move on the chair a bit, leaning

backwards and forwards? Or are you planning in staying in the same

position? The same position. Anybody who sits in front of me,

anybody from the audience can sit as long as they want. Between 11

and 15,000 people in the MoMA. It is just the gaze. Marina seduces

everybody she ever meets. That is not the case for me because I went

through that process and now we are divorced. We are great friends but

we are divorced. She would never try to seduce me because we are

divorced. With Marina I always try to sub stract the performer from

the person I have a working relationship with. I try to deal

with her as if she was a sculpture. I try to be -- I I don't want her

performance persona to get in the way. Because with Marina she's

You don't need this, are you sure? He makes the wine disappear. I can

Oh no! I met recently somebody that so many people told me I should

meet. It happened in MoMA. So we came here and had a little drink

and it is quite interesting, he is a magician, David Blaine. He was

thinking we could do something during my performance in MoMA.

There's always those axes in the glass in case of emergency. So I

was thinking of somehow I got into using this substance that she has

and gagging her face with it and people would think it was pretty

strange and then breaking the glass open and taking an axe and gutting

her. Then emergency, they put a blanket over me, blood all over the

place, and the police come and take him to prison. She is laying there

and the whole exhibition is over. People don't know what happened, if

it was an accident or not an zebt. -- accident. I will just hack her

violently. Have you done this before? No. When you do it one time,

it's crazy. It is going to be at MoMA. Those people are the perfect

people to do it to. Absolutely. What do you think? It is a really

bad idea. Why? Because he is a really interesting guy and he does

amazing things, but the fact of the matter is, some people call people

like that magicians but he would be prefer to be called an illusionist

and that tells you all you need to know. Your work doesn't have

anything to do with illusionism, it is all real. To make the connection

between those two bodies of work on the occasion on the most important

show you have made to date would be a disaster. I think it is totally

wrong. I would oppose it with every fibre of my being. Done, you are

right. I accept it. We work with frontline galleries now and Marina

is such a giant, but Sean is the one that came when no-one wanted to

deal with all the problems of having a performance artist in a

Blue or red, first feeling you have? Red. Klaus was about to

choose blue. What we did was carefully selected one photograph

to represent each performance and made those into editions and sold

them. We did them in very small editions. You have to remember it

is 20-odd years ago, so we were selling them for between 2,000 and

5,000 dollars each and now they are very sought after and if you could

find them they would be up to $50,000 each. The model we created

for Marina and the way we created the market for her has become

something of a standard. The other In the '70s, we took a radical

decision to live in a car. You don't need to pay electricity,

telephone bills, rent bills and we didn't have any money, but we

didn't want to do anything else but performing. This is the van where I

lived. I lived all this time. Two days ago, there was a queue in the

museum. It was a tough life. I didn't see this car for more than

30 years. When it arrived in the mu same, it hits me in my stomach. It

was something like a past life rushing to me. We have to go in the

countryside. We have to live with shepherds, milk the goats, we have

to go to get water and borrow gas from the stations. I knew every

shower in every gas station in Europe. I am very sentimental about

this van. Oh God, it really breaks my heart looking at this car inside

and how much belief and hope and innocent our life was dealing with

at that time. It is an incredible happy time of my life in this place.

It was everything I always wanted, the man I loved and work together

and be radical and not making any compromise. Two of us and the dog

and the universe. Show me that incredible road from living there

to here, it's been a long way. I have to go and put the show

together. I have no time. Marina was knitting sweaters for us. I was

preparing the car, I drove the car all the time, Marina couldn't drive.

So it was really basic, basic, basic, like modern nomads, but it

was the best time. We got a lot of energy and a lot of power. This is

Hudson, yeah, straight ahead. Let's stop here somewhere, because I

would like to drive now. It is my historical moment, I am going to

drive you for the first time in my life. Wow, Ulay, you will never

think it would come to this point, I put the lights on already. Is the

brake down or up? The The brake is up. I knew something was wrong!

That's perfect. Go further. Well, I am a little shaky, but shaken but

very much taken. From one to ten, what do you think? Five, six.

We go for seven. Well done. You work like hell.

going to make a zucchini sauce for the pasta. Our relationship was

very much to do with male-female separation in duties. He would do

everything with his external world, finding the money, going to the

bank and I would do do cleaning, washing, taking care of the dog.

When we split, I didn't have a bank account. I had no idea how that all

worked. It took me a long time to learn everything from zero. After

our simplistic life, she became very ambitious, both in her work

and her ambition, image, and wealth. I maybe went in a more stable

straight line after separation and she climbed a huge mountain with a

lot of success. I don't have the time to do this effort to make this

possible for myself. I don't have to make it possible for myself, I

was just going to marry her. this OK, I make it a bit spicy.

There are not so many artists, I believe, who are working so hard

like Marina does. But she's always very elegant. I look like a worker

in a field. Of course I am a worker in the field of art, but I look

like a worker but do much less work. Nightsea Crossing consisted of a

man and woman sitting opposite on two chairs, sitting motionless,

silent, fasting. Mainly what it was about tremendous dislikes in

western society. Inactivity, inaction is discredited. Silence is

discredited and fasting is discredited, those are the three

things that could obsess people, especially when you went for four,

five, six, seven, eight nine ten, 11, 12, 13, 16 days. Absolutely

motionless. Which is almost impossible. We did Nightsea

Crossing for 19 days. I had enough. A woman can sit better than men,

because of anatomy. I got up after 13 or 14 days because my ribs were

pushing so hard on my spleen that I went to the hospital and I said --

they said you should stop fasting. I lost 24 pounds already, so that

was just over the limit, on my part. One of the reasons he said he could

not sit, he was skinny he was sitting on his bones and it was

penetrating through his skin. Then he said you have to stand up

because performance can't be without me. I didn't see the reason.

That is why in this Nightsea Crossing, I am continuing. But

I never have had a relation with a woman, neither with a man, of such

a degree of symbiotic quality. 12 The Marina-Ulay collaboration in a

simple direct and profound way expressed the male-female dynamic

and then reaches this epic conclusion with the walk on the zet

wall of China -- great wall of China called The Lovers. It is

beyond op ratic in its proportion. The lovers in which Marina and Ulay

walked the great wall of China was an epic. It the three months

process of walking towards each other, very simple, really pared

down and extraordinary in its clarity. This was the last of their

Relation Works. Of course, the way the the great wall walk ended was

We very soon became this great art couple and everybody was projecting

like a perfect image. In reality he was not happy with this position

and somehow the more better pieces we were doing in the performance,

the worse our relations would get in private. And later on it is like

his interest was different from mine and he was experiencing life,

going drinking, going for the drugs and then he became unfaithful,

which was very hard for me. We were monogamous until a certain point

when the tightness of the ideology started to unravel, started to

disintegrate a little bit. Then she had a sexual adventure with

somebody I had, at the same time. Except she did it with a friend of

ours, I didn't. Wow. I shouldn't have said that. It took us eight

years of negotiations to get permission to walk the Chinese wall

and negotiations many times to take a trip to China and she was a

translator and when we finished the Chinese wall, he told me she was

pregnant and asked me what he should do. I said I leave and you

It ended like you know, like it began. It ended like it began. It

began like this and it ended like this. That's all. After I split

with Ulay, it was the most dramatic moment of my life. I remember

writing in my diary, I was 40, I was fat, ugly and unwanted. And I

said, God, I lost man I love and I lost my work because it was working

together. There was nothing there. It was empty. I was like new

beginning or am I going to totally go down and destroy myself in

depression? This was the moment that I went first time get some

money in Paris and I bought first designer clothes. And I felt so

good. I went to hairdresser. I went to the pedicure, manicure, I was

like, wow! What is like price for this kind of jacket? Price? Can go

to 400,000 euros. Depends... Depends on the pieces. And all this

stuff, you know, I made all this work. I'm fine. Why not feel good

and wanted again? And since then, I really say, "Oh God, I really love

fashion." And it was a kind of secret desire. I mean this looks

amazing. What do you think? Being a performance artist in the '70s to

mid-'80s is poverty. After we broke off, she got into theatre

productions because there was money. Bye-bye. The new works of her s

have a highly formalist aesthetic. So she clearly had made a step to

the theatre world. Very much staged. With theatrical touch to it. Marina

is a much more theatrical, a much more emotional, a much more

dramatic artist than this show shows. The risk at the MoMA

Exhibition will be how far it goes into being theatrical. Marina often

says there's a difference. When you perform, you have a knife and it's

your blood. When you are acting, it's ketchup and you don't cut

yourself. If we lose that in the MoMA performance, if it's just a

fake knife and ketchup, then we I been in bed six days. In bed

that's it. Shit, shit, shit, shit. I didn't leave this bed since six

days now. I was so desperate I was taking everything, anything anybody

bring me, I take it. But then I discovered this syrup with codeine.

This is amazing stuff. I never take drugs but the codeine really makes

you happy. I slept like a baby yesterday actually, with a smile

through all night on my face. LAUGHTER Like idiot. Anyway, there

I am. I think red is very good here, because I always think that red

gives strength. So if I have red colour, red bed sheets, red shawl,

red pyjama, red oranges, I, I maybe get better soon. OK. That was my

How are you doing today? Shit hit the fan, that's how. I'm really

freaking out. There's no show. We're, we're getting ready. Is it

possible for Marina to see a projection? Let me see one

projection. Any kind. We don't have power. Huh? We don't have power.

And we don't even have the source to play them on anyway. Or the

players. Sorry. Not yet. There's nothing. There's nothing. I mean,

it's five days before the show. Looks like there's no show. What

makes me most nervous is this room? The walls are not even in place.

Can we - can we start rehearsals? Yeah. That's the most important.

Let's do it. Can we get everybody there? Please come, hello. How are

you? Ahhh, yes, fine. Come. So can we sit down two seconds? I wanted

to see everybody. OK. Hello. It's so different than our workshop in

the countryside, I tell you. I'm going through hell. And you know,

one thing is so important to be open about all this shit because

it's like I can't pretend now I am in Zen shit but I am not. And also,

you know, I didn't even have personal contact with any of you. I

have to trust you with my life, for this show, for this three months.

There's no other way. Because it's like, you know, I have to be really,

have all my energy to make my own piece, knowing that everything is

fine upstairs. Thank you very much for coming to MoMA tonight. I'm the

curator for the Marina Abramovic retrospective. And that said, I

would like to introduce Marina. - Um, thank you very much to Marina.

We thought we should open the podium for questions. So, one last

chance to ask her something directly, otherwise you have to

wait until June. I suggest it's so late, let's hear three real good

questions. And at least one personal. How do we know that

before? Personal question. You seem happy. Are you? Depends. You know,

so what I can say I just, uh - Actually, I'm very happy that I am

by myself because who I can live with to do this next three months

what I want to do. There's no human being who will stay with me.

Because I, because I'm like in a military drill, you know, I'm in

this real complete concentration about doing this three months' work.

Because it looks like simple, I'm just in Atrium and having one

position and a chair. But it's not like that. It's extremely difficult

because you have to really be like a mountain. I want to create some

kind of stillness in the middle of the - of the - of the hell. And, um

- and for that, I have to be in right state of mind, so I have to

restrict myself with everything. And it's winter. When I come out,

it's going to be summer. Because Marina is one of the most

significant artists of the second part of the 20th Century. What is

so amazing about Marina is that she's really, you know, invents

situations where nobody has been yet. Her practice is extreme.

between 5th and 6th, please. In New York, tens if not hundreds of

thousands of people will be invited to make an experience they've never

made before. MoMA is the most significant context in the world

for any living artist to make a show. I really see the chance that

the performance art become mainstream art. And with this kind

of show in the Museum of Modern Art what never happened before, it's

the big chance. That incredible feeling of responsibility for

performance in general. It's not just for myself. I'm feeling like

Marie Antoinette going to, to cut her head off. The inability to keep

going, the potential of giving up will become part of the performance

if it occurs. I mean, it could be a fiasco. I mean, there are no rules.

The Artist is Present is a hugely courageous piece. Because it's a

piece that can fail. Klaus, I love you. Is this OK? You look beautiful.

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 121 seconds

That was five years living. Five years living. Isn't it great?

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 121 seconds

it is. Yeah. That's the other one. Now, Ulay is not there, now there

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 121 seconds

is no life's partner. Now the You've been a very bad girl! That

was Beyonce with a new video with Lady Gaga and Sandy Rios does not

like Lady Gaga's latest video. should be outlawed. You know, I

find it interesting because you've got this Lady Gaga video out now

and, and literally, uh, in, in today's New York Post, there's an

article about this exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where

daring patrons squeeze through two live nude performers, alternating

couples, opposite and same-sex, who stand in a narrow doorway of the

new exhibit, uh, which is by some Yugo - Yugoslavian-born provocateur.

As you listen to the sound of this woman's constant, guttural

screaming and moaning. That they say is art! And it's at MoMA!

across. They want to film the galleries. No. Do we have an

interview? No. I sent them the statement and our still images,

like four images from the exhibition. You know, we're not

trying to stop the coverage. We're just not going to have a circus

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Friday we had some uh, some, you know, weirdoes but uh, we were

expecting it. You know, it's a definite - some people is starting

to understand that it's possibly a stage. You know, possibly an

important window. The problem of the day was that we established a

signal of emergency for Marina. So if she raise her hand, it, it could

mean many things, but essentially it means, please ask the person

that is sitting with me to leave for some reason. I don't feel well.

Many different reasons. Yeah. This thing that she's like sort of

cleaning the, cleaning the thing. And then boom. It's like kkkkkhh.

It reconnect and it's only for you. So each and every one had like a

clean, unique and personal contact with Marina. It's like a magnet.

What is so beautiful about the MoMA performance - she's treating

actually every human being she is encountered, with, with the same

attention and same respect - that's pretty shocking. And some people

are shocked by this, and some people anyways think they deserve

this attention, and they are finally where they should be. And

others fall in love with her. There's so many different reasons

why people come to sit in front of me. Some of them, they're angry.

Some of them curious. Some of them just want to know what happen. Some

of them, they really open and you feel incredible pain. So many

people have so much pain. When they're sitting the front of me,

it's not about me anymore. It's very soon, I'm just the mirror of

Somebody told me the other day that for most masterpieces, people stand

in front of it for 30 seconds. Mona Lee Sis - 30 seconds. People come

and sit here all day. -- Mona Lisa - 30 seconds. People come and sit

here all day. The world is moving so fast now. People barely have an

attention span at all. She slows everybody's brain down. She asks us

to stay there for quite a length of time, which we are not used to

doing. She transforms us as a result. Marina is an artist that

visualises time. Using her body in the space with the audience. By the

mere duration she brings time in as a weight. The weight on the

performer's shoulders, taking a piece out of the performer's life

as a value. Time is not an ephemeral just rushing by. Just

imagine time as an unbearibly large object you cannot move and you are

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May I have your attention, please? The museum is now closed. Please

return your MoMA audio programming units to the desk on the ground

floor. The performance is finished. We are closing the space. Thank you.

Thank you. We're closed. Thank you. We open at 10.30am tomorrow. Come

back tomorrow. OK? You give me a chance? When you come back tomorrow,

we'll talk about it. You OK? You want me to get a wheelchair? No, my

foot's asleep. It's coming back. Just give me a couple of seconds.

OK. I was sitting on the ground a Kids, this is about limit. Even for

me. Oh God! Oh... It was strange today. I had this enormous pain but

at the same time when announcement arrive, I was thinking it was, it

was a mistake. I was expecting another three hours. I was thinking

it was so short. I don't know. Today? Yeah. I saw her having pain.

I saw and heard the guards saying that they are worried, so I say,

"If you think you ruin your health, if you think you damage your body,

then I offer you officially now to end the performance." So, so

painful. She just say, "No, it would never be an option." So she

was not even considering it, not listening to the end of my sentence,

she was saying, "No, I would never, There is pain but the pain is like

a kind of keeping secret. The moment you really go through the

door of pain, you enter to another state of mind. This feeling of

beauty and unconditional love and this feeling of there is no kind of

borders between your body and environment. And you start having

this incredible feeling of lightness and harmony with yourself.

It is something become like a, like a holy. I can't explain. And that

other state of mind is exactly what public start feeling that something

Performance is all about state of mind. The public is like a dog.

They can feel insecurity, they can feel fear, they can feel you are

not there. So the idea is how you can bring performer and the

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 121 seconds

audience in the same state of Would you... Take this table.

you move it with me? What is under the, the feet? What is under it?

It's nothing. It is just a little glue to keep it in position. Stay,

Marina. Don't move. It's so interesting that I could not do

without table in the first two months. I need to have structure. I

need to have the table. And the table have to be kept there until I

really got to the point that I actually don't need the table.

Let's switch it off. And once this table is removed, it is so much

more direct. I'm gonna open it for you. What do you think is the

difference? The difference is no buffer. From security point of view,

there is no buffer between two of them. You know, like if somebody is

going to do something, there's nothing preventing someone from

doing something, you know. makes herself so much more

vulnerable. It's so much more direct. There is no obstacle

between her and the audience. She was right. Priest doesn't need the

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 121 seconds

Put your number out. What is this? This is the self-imposed number

system for Marina Abramovic. We are almost done. You said this in April,

too. These are details. You cannot grab a few minutes here and there.

Few minutes? What's one month, year, one week here, one week there?

bastard! Just have a big picture. Keep focused on the big picture.

That's right. OK, I'm fine. museum is now open. Walk! Walk!

think I'm five. She's five, I'm four. I stand in the line several

days and I didn't get in. You have been sitting there? Yeah, yeah.

When? Yesterday, I was there at 5.00am in the morning and I didn't

make it. People camping out all night and waiting. It throws open

the whole kind of rock star question. Performance star.

Basically, a groupy question. What is interesting about her work and

this work is the blank slate aspect of it, what it brings out in

everyone from the art world, people that claim they know the work very

well... Which one is she? People that are part of this language and

then outright strangers and people that go, "Why is she doing this?"

That is endlessly interesting. What you are seeing is the giant canvas

Marina's connection to the audience comes out of this extraordinary

lack that she feels, or she felt as a child. She desires to be loved,

she desired to be needed. Marina does have the experience that she

needs the audience like air to breathe. That's the gasoline she is

running on. She lives for her art. She lives for the audience. When I

met her, I thought, "Oh God, she's in love with me." And it took me a

while to understand that she is in love with the world. So it's not

personal. "Don't take it personal. I'm in love with the world. I'm not

in love only with you." I realise she is repeating this

misunderstanding with every single person in the Atrium. OK? You OK,

mom? What's the matter? I'm OK. I'm proud of you. I don't know if the

public idolise me. It is their own thing how they project, but it's

not my aim. It is like, you know, if you come to the certain point of

your career, you are idolised, you have the money and you are famous,

but this is not the aim of the art. It is just a side-effect. It's like

In a way, like everybody's around, and you are aware of them, but the

connection with Marina is so strong that it doesn't... Really pushes it

away. Is she acting, do you feel? No, but the only thing that maybe

is similar is that there are people watching you. The sacrifice of

oneself for a performance it seems that there's always involved in

acting. Maybe. Are you an actor? Yeah, yeah. OK, you have that sense,

you have that presence. Yeah, good. May I have your attention please?

The museum is now closed. Please return your MoMA audio equipment to

the desk on the ground floor. know that Tunji told me 750,000

people saw the show? This is like almost a million! I think we should

prolong it for some month more so we can get the million. Let's go.

This is from the cook? The cook? Yes, yes. He's genius, this guy.

Who was this look, look, good- looking Asian man? ALL: Ah! You

like him. Huh? Can we get some telephone numbers here? He was

really nice. Sexy. We are close to end. After I saw Marina's exhibit,

I am really inspired to get into performance art and to do it. Being

here is like a piece in itself, like dedicating this much

commitment to her. We are there, kids, almost there. Next time

Saturday I'm in the country, which is really something. I wish I had a

number but I don't have one. I came all the way from Australia to sit

with Marina. Do you need a number? I'm sad and happy., altogether.

Marina, we're taking you past 53rd so you can see the queue for the

last time. They started I think Wednesday night or Thursday night?

One girl had a great idea to come at around 10.00pm. What? And then

for the day after people just don't, they don't leave the place. People

that are like, they are up to sit. They just get out of the museum and

sit in front until the morning. God, this is amazing. This is the

last day. I don't think anybody imagined this. What time is now?

What time? 10.13. Can we do the chairs? Sure. We already, we are

already planning. I know what to do. The museum is not over till 10.30.

If you are not planning to sit in front of Marina, you don't have to

come in now. You can wait until we open the museum so that we can give

21 times dealing with Marina, has this powerful meaning. Were you

expecting it to be transformed? it was just, when I saw it the

first time, I came and you know, wanted to experience it and then,

you know, everything, everything Get him out of here. We have come

to sit with Marina, Whore of Babylon, and confes. Speech

superfluous, pure form against pure form, the reflection of an

emptiness full of value. We have come as the last spectators before

the Crucifixion. We sit as Apostles at her table. And our nonchalance

betrays her. It is like a matter of time before firing someone in the

face is gonna be art. You are going to sit across from the artist in

silence. There are no distractions of any sort. No gestures, you don't

speak to the artist, you don't move your hands. Are you all right?

We've been waiting 16 hours. LAUGHTER OK, your moment is coming

up shortly. All right, I'll let you OK, we need somebody sitting,

please. Come on, let's go. I'm next. I know. OK, we need to get... The

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There's maybe still hope that I will get upstairs. I don't know if

you should be filming me. I would love to sit across from her. I

didn't know it was a rule. I didn't realise. I would have obeyed the

rule if I had known. But I wanted it to be spontaneous. I didn't want

anybody to know. I wanted it to be my own thing and special with her.

I thought in that space, it is like the audience is part of the art,

you know, and we bring it to - and I wanted to be as vulnerable to her

as she makes herself to everybody else. I think the exhibition is a

self-portrait. That's her. There she sits and she gives it all. She

always talks about the here and now. But this piece, the title, "Marina

Abramovic: The Artist is Present" that's a self-portrait. She did

create a charismatic space, a little rent in the fabric of the