Marina Abramovic Quotes

The complete absence of the story - that was the best thing about this whole thing, because you know that nothing's going to happen and everything's going to happen. It's just the gaze. You create your own zone.

When Lady Gaga says I am her inspiration, you reach kids between 12 and 18. Now I am like a brand - jeans, Coca-Cola.

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.

Television is completely another medium.

I really like dark, politically incorrect humor.

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.

I didn't give any instruction to the video, because it was a new medium. I didn't know what to tell him; it was so young. I did the piece and immediately after the piece, I wanted to see the material.

We, performers, work on willpower. This willpower works in a short term, not durational.

I think the role of artists in the past was very different. Artists had less responsibility in many ways.

When I did "Seven Easy Pieces," I actually re-performed the performances of other artists. It was such difficult work because I had to really go through the documentation, look through the sources, to ask the witnesses who saw it.

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.

People ask me what book politicians should read. They should read the life of Mahatma Gandhi.

Most artists create foundations where they put their own work. Here I'm not putting my own work. I'm just creating the chambers.

You should see ballerinas' feet. They don't have nails. You see beauty, but it's unbelievable pain - with a 40-year pension! That's it, and then life is really finished.

You know the movie "Rashomon" from [Takeshi] Kurosawa, when all the people in the forest see something different? Each performance was like that.

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

Performance has to be mainstream art. This is what I'm fighting for.

A powerful performance will transform everyone in the room.

Happiness comes from the full understanding of your own being.

I notice if I'm too fat or if I'm too ugly or there's skin hanging or whatever. When my clothes start not fitting, I get really self-conscious about what I eat.

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.

There are so many rules in the art world. I don't like rules and I break them all the time. I don't care if people think I'm overexposed. What I care about is if I'm going to run out of energy. Overexposure is only a problem if you are drained of energy and cannot come up with new ideas. Every artist has to recognize that and know when to stop for a moment.

I want to die consciously, without fear, and without anger. Three things. I see my friends dying with fear and anger and it's terrible. My grandmother kept her clothes ready for 40 years for her funeral. She lived to 103! But she kept the clothes in a cupboard. As the styles changed, she changed the clothes! I think if I start now with my funeral, it's good.

I never say Serbia. I always say I come from a country that no longer exists.

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.

In the performer's body, you don't care how you look. It doesn't matter if you're old, fat, beautiful, or ugly. It doesn't change anything. The only thing is your charisma and how you express your idea.

You can't choreograph death, but you can choreograph your funeral.

The only way to change consciousness and the world around us is to start with yourself.

For me, the most difficult piece is the one I'm about to make.

A great artist has to be ready to fail.

When you have a nonverbal conversation with a total stranger, then he cant cover himself with words, he cant create a wall.

I hate repetition. Even when I am home and have to buy milk, I go a different way each time to avoid having a habit of anything. Habits are really bad. So to me it is really important to live in what I call the spaces in-between. Bus stations, trains, taxis or waiting rooms in airports are the best places because you are open to destiny, you are open to everything and anything can happen.

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.

Western culture has more need because they're so much more degenerated. They're so much more hurt, and misbalanced completely.

I had such an intense relationship to every person. I still see people on the street and we lock eyes, and say "Oh my god!" and we just kiss and stay like that and sometimes cry.

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.

If you have to do durational work, you have to train! No bullshit. You can't do it for three months. You can do it for five hours, 10 hours, and then you have three months rest. If this is your job, you have to be flexible.

We're destroying the planet, and the planet rebels.

I have always staged my fears as a way to transcend them.

Because of technology, we don't develop telepathy. We don't use telepathy, but use, you know, the mobile phones. Why?

It's okay that we're not perfect. It's okay that we all have problems. It's okay to cry, to show emotions.

Even now, I have traces of the good little girl. When I am not performing, for instance, I am really very quiet and ordinary.

Woody Allen has a wonderful line: 'Today I'm a star. What will I be tomorrow? A black hole?' That's very important to know - that you have the moment, then you lose the moment. You have to see your chances, you have to take them, and you also have to see when you don't have chances to take.

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.

You go to India and you see the poorest village somewhere in the middle of India. And the poor family is happier than any rich billionaire in this country because of spirituality.

That's something that I'm trying to do in my work, to send a message to western people. They're the ones who are completely disconnected.

You know, my mother never thought I would do anything good in my life, and I was standing in this opera with four gold medals! If she were alive, maybe she'd think I was doing well!

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.