Marina Abramovic Quotes
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The mind is crazy thing. To be focused is the most difficult thing.
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I think 21st century should be art without objects.
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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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I was friends with Susan Sontag the last four years of her life. She had this amazing charisma and so much energy, but she had a sad little funeral in Montparnasse in Paris. It was rainy. It was all wrong. And I was thinking, 'God, she loved life so much.'
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For me, performance is a holy ground. When I perform, I really step into a different state of consciousness.
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The only theatre I do is my own. Somehow, my life is the only life that I can play.
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Americans don't like European movies.
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I am obsessive always, even as a child. On one side is this strict orthodox religion, on the other is communism, and I am this little girl pulled between the two. It makes me who I am. It turns me into the kind of person that Freud would have a field day with, for sure.
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So many artists say they're not aware of audience. For me is unbelievable.
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Once you live in New York, you can't live anywhere else. Living in Paris is like going in slow motion. It's so bourgeois. I get so bored.
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Your ego can become an obstacle to your work. If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.
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The most revolutionary ideas are not sellable, but only mind-changing.
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All my inspiration comes from life. That's how it never stops, in a way.
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I don't know anything about the afterlife because I haven't been there yet.
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I really don't like art where you need to know so much theory to understand. If the theory is removed, it doesn't do anything. That means that this work is an illustration of theory, and I don't believe in the power of the work itself.
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I am only interested in the ideas that become obsessive and make me feel uneasy. The ideas that I'm afraid of.
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In every ancient culture, there are rituals to mortify the body as a way of understanding that the energy of the soul is indestructible.
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In my work I have complete control, but about my life, I don't want to.
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To really change the way society thinks, you have to give your entire being to it until there's nothing left.
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Cancer is an emotional disease.
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I am not a therapist. I am not a spiritual leader. These elements are in the art: it is therapeutic, spiritual, social and political - everything. It has many layers. But art has to have many layers. If it doesn't, then forget it.
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Performance has to be mainstream art. This is what I'm fighting for.
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Performance is there, and if you are not there in that moment it happened, it just stays in the memory. It's so immaterial and something this immaterial is very difficult to collect. Its difficult to buy, its how we can buy immaterial art.
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The public is in need of experiences that are not just voyeuristic. Our society is in a mess of losing its spiritual centre.