Marina Abramovic ARTWORK / TRANSITORY OBJECTS / MAI / MEMOIR / BIBLIOGRAPHY / BIOGRAPHY / LINKS EARLY WORKS WORKS WITH ULLAY SOLO WORKS Marina Abramovic, born in 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, is without question one of the seminal artists of our time. Since the beginning of her career in Yugoslavia during the early 1970s where she attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Abramovic has pioneered the use of performance as a visual art form. The body has always been both her subject and medium. Exploring the physical and mental limits of her being, she has withstood pain, exhaustion, and danger in the quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. Abramovic's concern is with creating works that ritualize the simple actions of everyday life like lying, sitting, dreaming, and thinking; in effect the manifestation of a unique mental state. As a vital member of the generation of pioneering performance artists that includes Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, and Chris Burden, Abramovic created some of the most historic early performance pieces and is one of few still making important durational works. From 1975 until 1988, Abramovic and the German artist Ulay performed together, dealing with relations of duality. After separating in 1988, Abramovic returned to solo performances in 1989. Abramovic has presented her work with performances, sound, photography, video, sculpture, and ‘Transitory Objects for Human and Non Human Use’ in solo exhibitions at major institutions in the U.S. and Europe, including the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands (1985), Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1990), Neue National Galerie, Berlin (1993), and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (1995). Her work has also been included in many large-scale international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1976 and 1997) and Documenta VI, VII and IX, Kassel, Germany (1977, 1982 and 1992). In 1995, Abramovic’s exhibition Objects Performance Video Sound traveled to the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, and the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh. In 1998, the exhibition Artist Body - Public Body toured extensively including stops at Kunstmuseum and Grosse Halle, Bern and La Gallera, Valencia. In 2000, a large solo show was held at the Kunstverein in Hannover. In 2002, she participated in the Berlin-Moscow exhibition, which opened at the Martin Gropius-Bauhaus in Berlin and finished its tour in 2004 at the State Historical Museum, Moscow. In 2004, Abramovic also exhibited at the Whitney Biennial in New York and had a significant solo show, The Star, at The Marugame Museum of Contemporary Art and the Kumamoto Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan. Marina Abramovic has taught and lectured extensively in Europe and America including the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunst in Hamburg, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. In 1994 she became Professor for Performance Art at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunst in Braunschweig where she taught for seven years. In 2004 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Art Institute in Chicago. She was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 1997 Venice Biennale for her extraordinary video installation/performance piece Balkan Baroque‚ and in 2003 received the Bessie for The House with the Ocean View‚ a 12-day performance at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. In 2005, Abramovic presented Balkan Erotic Epic at the Pirelli Foundation in Milan, Italy and at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. That same year, she held a series of performances called Seven Easy Pieces at The Guggenheim Museum in New York, which was awarded the prize for 2005-2006 Best Exhibition of Time-Based Art by the United States Art Critics Association. In 2008 she was honored with the Austrian Commander Cross for her contributions to Art History and in September 2009 decorated with the Honorary Doctorate of Arts by the University of Plymouth, UK. In the spring of 2010, she had her first major retrospective in the United States at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and simultaneously performed her durational piece The Artist is Present for more than 700 hours. This retrospective boasts of having been seen by more than 850,000 visitors. In summer of 2011, Abramovic was bestowed with the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts by Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. In 2011 a theatre piece by Robert Wilson entitled The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic premiered and Abramovic’s retrospective The Artist is Present toured with great success to The Garage, in Moscow. In January and February 2012 the HBO documentary, similarly entitled, premiered at Sundance Film Festival in Utah and The Canadian Film Premiere, Reel Artists Film Festival, Toronto. This film won the audience choice awards at Berlin Film Festival. In spring of 2012 Abramovic launched a major double exhibition at PAC and Lia Rumma Galeria, Milan showing all new work and unveiling The Abramovic Method to the world. The artist performed in Robert Wilson's theatre piece The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic that premiered in Manchester 2011 and then traveled from Madrid in April to Basel, Amsterdam and Antwerp in June of 2012. The piece performed in Toronto at the Luminatio festival and in New York at the Park Avenue Armory in 2013. Upcoming exhibitions in 2014 include solo shows at CAC Malaga, the Kistefos Museet in Norway, and the Serpentine Gallery in London. Abramovic founded the Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI), a platform for immaterial and long durational work to create new possibilities for collaboration among thinkers of all fields. The institute inhabited its most complete form to date in 2016 in collaboration with NEON in “As One”, Benaki Museum, Athens. Using herself and the public as medium, Abramovic performed for three months at the Serpentine Gallery in London, 2014; the piece was titled after the duration of the work, 512 Hours. SELECTED EXHIBITIONS This list has been compiled chronologically; solo exhibitions and performances precede group exhibitions and performances 2013 Solo Marina Abramovic 2013 Group The Temptation of AA Bronson, Witte de With Contemporary Art, Rotterdam Bad Girls, Fonds regional d’art contemporain de Lorraine, Metz DLA Piper Series: Constellations, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool Unattained Landscape, Japan Foundation & Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, Venice Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London Kirchner’s Archers: Reflection on Art History. Kirchner Museum, Davos Le Pont, Marseilles Contemporary Art Museum [MAC], Marseilles Moments on Moments, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp Hair: Untagling Roots of Identity, The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, Ithaca BOOK MACHINE, Centre Pompidou, Paris 2012 Solo Marina Abramovic, La Fabrica Gallery, Madrid (performance) With Closed Eyes I See Happiness, Galleria Lia Rumma, Milan The Abramovic Method, PAC, Milan Marina Abramovic: Lecture for Women, Anthony's Meltdown, London Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art, The University of Chicago Balkan Stories, Kunsthalle Vienna 2012 Group Dotek/Touch, Futura Center for Contemporary Art, Prague Performance Now: The First Decade of the New Century, Wesleyan University, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Middletown Faces: The Phenomenon of Face in Videoart, Rudolfinum, Prague Documenta 13: The Worldly House, Karlsaue Park, Kassel Beyond Time: International Video Art Today, Kulturhuset, Stockholm 12 Rooms, Museum Folkwang, Essen When the Mountain Changed it’s Clothing: Ruhrtriennale, International Festival of The Arts, Bochum (theater performance) Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art, University of Chicago, Chicago 2011 Solo Marina Abramovic, Pinnacle Gallery, Savannah, Georgia Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present, The Garage, Moscow 2011 Group Festival of Contemporary Art: Art Ist Kuku Nu Tu, Tartu Art Museum, Estonia. Mundos Nomades, Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales, Montevideo Heroinas, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza y Fundacion Caja, Madrid 10 Dialogues: Richard Demarco, Scotland and the European Avant Garde, The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture, Edinburgh The Armory Show, Luciana Brito Gallery, New York Publics and Counterpublics, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville Inquiétantes étrangetés, Le Musee des Beaux-Arts, Nantes The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama, The Nobel Museum, Stockholm, Sweden, toured to The San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas 2010 Solo Personal Archaeology, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York Back to Simplicity, Luciana Brito Gallery, Sao Paolo Marina Abramovic, Lisson Gallery, London The Artist is Present, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA. 2010 Group Horizonte Expandido, Santander Cultural, Porto Alegre 100 YEARS, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York GSK Contemporary - Aware: Art Fashion Identity, Royal Academy of Arts, London MIRADAS SINGULARES VOCES PLURALES, Claustro de Exposiciones, Cadiz Islands Never Found, State Museum of Contemporary Art and Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama, The Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum at Florida International University, Miami Brave New World, MUDAM, Luxembourg 2009 Group Haunted, Guggenheim Museum, New York Essential Experiences, Palazzo Riso, Palermo 8 Lessons on Happiness with a Happy End, Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv Look at me. Faces and Gazes in Art 1969-2009, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin Lagrimas De Eros, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid Mahlziet, Essen in der Kunst, Galerie im Traklhaus, Austria. Paisatges Creuats, Es Baluard Museu d'Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, Palma de Mallorca Kasseler Dok Fest, Kasseler Kunstverein, Kassel, Germany. 1989. End of History or Beginning of the Future?, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York, toured to Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna Moscow Biennale, Moscow Videnie, Guelman Gallery, Moscow Femmes et l'art (Women's Work), Centre Pompidou, Paris Screening, WRO Art Center, Wroclaw, Poland Invasion of Sound, Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw The First Stop on the Super Highway, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Newark Club des Femmes' Body of Work, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London Pourquoi Attendre, Centre d'Art de Geneve, Geneva, Switzerland. Essential Experiences, Palazzo Riso, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia, Palermo Go East II, Mudam Luxembourg, Luxembourg Messiahs, Modem/Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen, Hungary Mahlzeit, Galerie Im Traklhaus, Salzburg The Third Mind, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York MI VIDA-Live experience in Art from Musac Collect, Mucsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama, Fundacion Canal de Isabel II, Madrid, Spain. 2008 Solo The Onion, Gwen Frostic School of Art, Kalamazoo 8 Lessons on Emptiness with a Happy End, Gallery Guy Bartschi, Geneva and Gallery Beaumontpublic, Luxembourg Transitory Objects, Galeria Brito Cimino, Sao Paulo 2008 Group Rough Guide to Amsterdam, Magacin, Belgrade Time Crevasse, Yokohama Triennale, Japan Moving Images/Moving Bodies, Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow, Glasgow Video Performance: Models of Self Reflection, Ausstellungshalle Kunst, Münster, Germany Fragile, Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf, Germany Knockin' on Heaven's Door, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz, Liechtenstein FEMINAE , Gallery Guy Bartschi , Geneva, Switzerland Self as Selves, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland. Space of Time, La Fabrica Gallery, Madrid, Spain. The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution. P.S.1. Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York Person of the Crowd: The Contemporary Art of Flânerie, Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art, Barbican Art Gallery, London. Platform Seoul, Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto(CAMK). The Hands of Art, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam Holland The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama, The Yerba Beuna Centre for the Arts, San Francisco, California, toured to Hillside Terrace Galleries, Tokyo, Japan 28th Biennale de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil 2007 Solo Balkan Erotic Epic, Cent8-Serge Le Borgne, Paris, France, toured to Living Arts, Tulsa, Oklahoma; La Fabrica Galeria, Madrid, Spain Present-Past-Present, Kappatos Gallery, Athens 2007 Group 53rd International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen, Germany Art Metropole: The Top 100, The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art, Dorsky Gallery, Curatorial Programs, Long Island City, NY. Art Basel Conversation: Premiere in Honor of Marina Abramovic, Art Basel, Miami Beach, US. Auto Emotion: Autobiography, Emotion and Self-Fashioning, The Power Plant, Toronto The Balance of Power, Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong, China Best Regards from the Blind Spot, Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria, Spain. Between Art and Spirituality, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France. Brakke Grond, Project Perform, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Canvas, 'LUX Jan Hoet, Broadcast rights, Belgium. Carlos Urroz Proyectos, Ibiza Centre d'Art Contemporaine, Geneva Exhibition Pain/Schmerz, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin Festival Cote Court, Transat Vidéo / Brent Klinkum, Pantin, France. (?) Foodscapes, Art & Gastronomy, Solares Fondazione delle Arti , Parma Italy Fortunate Objects, Ella Fontanas Cisneros Collection, Miami US. FRAC de Lorraine, Metz, France. Galeria Brito Ciminio at Shanhai Art Fair, Shangai, China. Gehen Bleiben, KunstMuseum, Bonn, Germany Guggenheim Collection: 1940s to Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. The Glamour of Violence, DasArts, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Into Me / Out of Me, Macro, Rome, Italy. John Hansard Gallery, Southampton UK Julia Stocheck Collection, Düsseldorf, Germany. Kunstmuseum, Bonn, Germany La fiaba contemporanea, Art Sanio Campania, Benevento, Italy. Lights, Camera, Action: Artists Films for the Cinema, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, toured to Loyola University, Chicago Mulher Mulheres, SESC Avenida Paulista, Sao Paulo, Brazil. (?) Mulher, Mulheres', Sao Paulo, Brasil. (?) Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, MMSU, Croatia. (?) Nagoya City Art Museum, Naka-ku-Sakae New Genre Festival XIV, Living Arts, Tulsa Observatori festival, Valencia Ohnmacht Muthesius, Kunsthochschule, Kiel Quadrennial, Prague, Czech Republic. (?) Project Bridge, Moskee Bos en Lommer, Amsterdam PURE, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York Renegades, Exit Art, New York Role Exchange, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. Role Play: Feminist Art Revisited 1960-1980, Galerie Lelong, New York Schmerz, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (?) Seven Easy Pieces, Gender Bender Festival, Bologna, Italy; KunstFilmBiennale, Cologne, Germany; MAXXI, Rome, Italy. Structures and Surfaces, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York Student Exam, NIMk, Netherlands.(?) Surrounding the Subject, Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts True Romance, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria; University of Amsterdam, ASCA, Nertherlands.(??) Vertigo: The Century of Off-Media Art and Futurism to the Web, Museo d’Arte Moderna, Bologna Video Apartment, bodycity, Docklands, Dublin Vitoria, Centro Cultural Montehermoso Kulturena, Gasteiz WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles 2006 Solo Balkan Erotic Epic, SESC, Sao Paulo, toured to Hangar Biocca, Milan; Living Arts, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Galerie Cent8 – Serge Le Borgne, Paris, France; Fundación La Fabrica, Madrid 2006 Group Into Me / Out of Me, PS1, New York, NY, toured to Kunst-Werke, Berlin; Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome Unlearn, Plug In,Winnipeg, Canada. Watch Out, Beaumont Public, Luxembourg The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama, UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles 2005 Solo Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid Balkan Erotic Epic, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York The Biography Remix, Avignon Theatre Festival, Avignon (performances) Count On Us: Photographies et Objets, Galerie Guy Bärtschi, Geneva (Re)Presenting Performance, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (symposium) Self Portrait with Skeleton, Art Basel, Art Unlimited, Basel (performance) Seven Easy Pieces, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (performances) 2005 Group 5thMercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil. (?) Another Expo: Beyond the Nation-State, Kitakyushu Center for Contemporary Art, Japan, toured to White Box, New York The Artist’s Body. Then and Now, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Genève, Switzerland. CCA Kitakyushu Artist’s Books, Christophe Daviet-Thery, Paris. Conflict: Perspectives, Positions, Realities in Central European Art, Slought Foundation, Philadelphia Donna/Donne, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, toured to SESC, Sao Paulo DreamingNow, The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham East Art Museum: A (Re) Construction of the History of Contemporary Art (1945-1985) in Eastern Europe, Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum, Hagen, Germany Figure It Out, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York Fragments of Time, Yellow Bird Gallery, Newburgh, New York The Gesture, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece, toured to Quarter Center for Contemporary Arts, Florence, Italy. Getting Emotional, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MASS. Indeterminant States, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami La Galleria dell’Amore: Let Love Blossom with IPG Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea, Trento, Italy (curator) Me, Myself and I: Artist self-portraits from the Heather & Tony Podesta Collection, Curator’s Office, Washington, DC, toured to Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Virginia Beach, VA. Melancholia, Jensen Gallery, Auckland Miradas Y Conceptos En La Collección Helga de Alvear, Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo (MEIAC), Badajoz, Spain. Suddenly Older, Clifford Art Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY. Take Two: Worlds and Views, Contemporary Art from the Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Videographies: The Early Decades from the EMST collection, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece. "Egon Schiele, Marina Abramovic, Dansgroep Krisztina de Chatel" [performance] Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Holland. 2004 Solo The Biography Remix, with Michael Laub, Fondazione Roma Europa, Rome, toured to Avignon Theatre Festival, France (performance) Performing Body: Video Works By Marina Abramovic, The Speed Art Museum, Louisville Loop Performance, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York Virgin Warrior/Warrior Virgin, with Jan Fabre, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (performance) 2004 Group Art Unlimited: ArtBasel 2004, Basel Exhibit and Silent Auction, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York Cetinje Biennial, Ceninje, Montenegro. Camera/Action, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago Collected Views from East to West, Generali Foundation, Vienna Depicting Love, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin Maya Lin: Earth Drawings, The Wanas Foundation, Sweden Performance en Vivo, Museo de Arte, Puerto Rico Performing Body, Speed Art Museum, Louisville Video Killed the Radio Star, La Fabrica Gallery, Spain. Whitney Biennial, New York 2003 Solo Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Student Body, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The Star, Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, Japan. Fundación La Fábrica, Madrid, Spain toured to Maragame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Kagawa, Japan 2003 Group The Invisible Thread: Buddhist Spirit in Contemporary Art, Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island Video Evenings, MARTa pre-opening event,… truncated (32,365 more characters in archive)