The brother of my grandfather was the patriarch of the Orthodox Church and revered as a saint. So everything in my childhood is about total sacrifice, whether to religion or to communism. This is what is engraved on me. This is why I have this insane willpower. My body is now beginning to be falling apart, but I will do it to the end. I don't care. With me it is about whatever it takes.

Marina Abramovic

Categorized in : Fall Brother Sacrifice

We are always in the space in-between... all the spaces where you are not actually at home. You haven't arrived yet.... This is where our mind is the most open. We are alert, we are sensitive, and destiny can happen. We do not have any barriers and we are vulnerable. Vulnerability is important. It means we are completely alive and this is an extremely important space. This is for me the space from which my work generates.

Marina Abramovic

destiny home mean

I think communication starts when words are not present at all ... I think we put so much emphasis on language, actually silence is so much more important.

Marina Abramovic

communication silence thinking

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.

Marina Abramovic

artist mind giving

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.

Marina Abramovic

knives real blood

If you're a woman, it's almost impossible to establish a relationship. You're too much for everybody. It's too much. The woman always has to play this role of being fragile and dependent. And if you're not, they're fascinated by you, but only for a little while. And then they want to change you and crush you. And then they leave.

Marina Abramovic

crush women play

Once, Picasso was asked what his paintings meant. He said, “Do you ever know what the birds are singing? You don’t. But you listen to them anyway.” So, sometimes with art, it is important just to look.

Marina Abramovic

singing bird art

Because we never stop silently loving those who we once loved out loud

Marina Abramovic

loud

Time is an illusion. Time only exists when we think about the past and the future. Time doesn't exist in the present here and now.

Marina Abramovic

illusion past thinking

The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.

Marina Abramovic

escaping cutting gun

If we go for the easy way, then we never change.

Marina Abramovic

never-change easy way

I am only interested in the ideas that become obsessive and make me feel uneasy. The ideas that I'm afraid of.

Marina Abramovic

obsessive feels ideas

True love for whatever you are doing is the answer to everything.

Marina Abramovic

answers

Through performance, I found the possibility of establishing a dialogue with the audience through an exchange of energy, which tended to transform the energy itself. I could not produce a single work without the presence of the audience, because the audience gave me the energy to be able, through a specific action, to assimilate it and return it, to create a genuine field of energy.

Marina Abramovic

able energy fields

When you have so much pain, you think you will lose consciousness. If you say to yourself, ‘So what, lose consciousness,’ the pain goes away.

Marina Abramovic

consciousness pain thinking

The only thing I have learned is to find strength in yourself. No one can help you, no one can do anything for you, you have to do the work yourself.

Marina Abramovic

finding-strength i-have-learned helping

A great artist has to be ready to fail.

Marina Abramovic

great-art failing artist

Your ego can become an obstacle to your work. If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.

Marina Abramovic

creativity greatness believe

I have found that long durational art is really the key to changing consciousness. On such a deep level. Not just the performer, but the one looking at it.

Marina Abramovic

consciousness long art

We always want to do things the way we like, that's why we never change.

Marina Abramovic

never-change want way

I say we don't need art in nature, because it's so perfect without us. We need it in the cities. But the cities have absolutely lost their own center. They think having ten cars and a big bridge is the way to happiness. It's not.

Marina Abramovic

cities art thinking