Marina Abramovic Quotes
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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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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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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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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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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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Artists should never think of themselves as an idol. Fame is a side effect of one's work.
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People have so much pain inside them that they're not even aware of.
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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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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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I don't do husbands. I don't do children.
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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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You can't choreograph death, but you can choreograph your funeral.
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Americans don't like European movies.
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I test the limits of myself in order to transform myself, but I also take the energy from the audience and transform it.
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You know I very much respect Yvonne Rainer, she is very important - in American dance, the entire development of modern dance, and creating a wonderful physical language.
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All my inspiration comes from life. That's how it never stops, in a way.
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In my work I have complete control, but about my life, I don't want to.
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Happiness comes from the full understanding of your own being.
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Performance has to be mainstream art. This is what I'm fighting for.
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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.
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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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If you're a baker, making bread, you're a baker. If you make the best bread in the world, you're not an artist, but if you bake the bread in the gallery, you're an artist. So the context makes the difference.
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For me, performance is a holy ground. When I perform, I really step into a different state of consciousness.