Top 88 Marina Abramovic Quotes

The entire aim of my work is to elevate the human spirit. We can put the human spirit down so easily.

Theater is something that as a performance artist you have to hate.

An artist should not fall in love with another artist.

Unconditional love with someone you’ve never met is a straightforward feeling that is so overwhelming and fulfilling.

I believe so much in the power of performance I don’t want to convince people. I want them to experience it and come away convinced on their own.

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

From the very early stage when I started doing performance art in the ’70s, the general attitude – not just me, but also my colleagues – was that there should not be any documentation, that the performance itself is artwork and there should be no documentation.

There are good artists that have children. Of course there are. They are called men.

Of course I dream to have this perfect man who does not want to change me. And I’m so not marriage material, it’s terrible. But my dream is to have those Sunday mornings, where you’re eating breakfast and reading newspapers with somebody.

I’m interested in utopian communities of the past. Many of them didn’t survive and I’m examining closely the reasons they failed.

From a very early time, I understood that I only learn from things I don’t like.

So many artists say they’re not aware of audience. For me is unbelievable.

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.

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

An artist has to look at the future, to see what we can do better.

Artists should never think of themselves as an idol. Fame is a side effect of one’s work.

In real life, you just work for the ordinary self, but in the front of audience you become the superself. That’s a completely different thing.

Aborigines are not just the oldest race in Australia; they are the oldest race on the planet. They look like dinosaurs.

If you do performance and music, it’s not performance as music.

I don’t do husbands. I don’t do children.

I didn’t get paid for performances most of my life. If I did, I would be billionaire now, and I’m not.

You know, James Franco is one of the most interesting figures because he has no rules. He breaks all the borders.

I grew up with my grandmother because my parents were making careers and didn’t have much time for me. She was a highly religious Serbian Orthodox, spending most of her time in church. It’s a great mix, and I use all these elements in my work.

I always sent my mother all these huge books I made. When my mother died, I was cleaning her cupboard, and these big books were only 20 pages long.

I have the greatest respect for Aborigine people, to whom I owe everything. The time I spent with members of the Pijantjatjara and Pintupi tribes in Australia was a transformative experience for me and one that has deeply and indelibly informed my entire life and art.

One of my aims was to be paid as well as a plumber. Plumber was better-paid than any performance artist who was always doing this for free. It is so important to make a good living from art. You know, John Cage, until he was 60, he couldn’t pay electricity.

Good art is never made in studio. Good art I make in life.

To control the breathing is to control the mind. With different patterns of breathing, you can fall in love, you can hate someone, you can feel the whole spectrum of feelings just by changing your breathing.

You know, everyone is always talking about plastic surgery, or the technology, what to do. I really think it’s important to help yourself with the technology if you want to feel better, but I am absolutely against any kind of monstrous cuts of the body, lifting that is beyond recognition, this kind of stuff.

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.

In every ancient culture, there are rituals to mortify the body as a way of understanding that the energy of the soul is indestructible.

There’s not any subject the public doesn’t know about me. I don’t have secrets, and this is so liberating because this makes me free.

We are actually living in a million parallel realities every single minute.

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

I really think there’s no difference between an art piece made by a man and one made by a woman. Is it a good art piece or a bad art piece? Of course, if you’re female, you’re maybe dealing with different issues.

I am very clear that I am not a feminist. It puts you into a category and I don’t like that.

I hate kitchens. I don’t understand these enormous American kitchens that take up half the living room and then they just order pizza.

People ask why there are so few female artists who succeed. It’s because women are not ready to sacrifice as much as men. Women want a man, they want a family, they want to have children, they want to be loved, and to be an artist. And they can’t; it’s impossible.

We always project into the future or reflect in the past, but we are so little in the present.

The world doesn’t need an artist who shows reality as it is.

In America, everyone’s always hiding their age.

My grandmother, when she looked at American movies, she said, ‘They’re all the same. In the first scene somebody shoots somebody and then everybody makes phone calls.’

All my inspiration comes from life. That’s how it never stops, in a way.

There’s plenty of talented women. Why do men take over the important positions? It’s simple. Love, family, children – a woman doesn’t want to sacrifice all of that.

A powerful performance will transform everyone in the room.

When people ask me where I am from I never say, ‘Serbia.’ I always say, ‘I come from a country that no longer exists.’

The mind is crazy thing. To be focused is the most difficult thing.

Being an artist is not easy – I have always said that to the students I have taught over the years. It’s a huge sacrifice.

Why am I not feminist? Maybe because I come from a country where my mother ruled my life. I never felt in any way that I couldn’t achieve what I want.

I had three abortions because I was certain that it would be a disaster for my work.

The hardest thing to do is something that is close to nothing.

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

The public is in need of experiences that are not just voyeuristic. Our society is in a mess of losing its spiritual centre.

My mother and father had a terrible marriage. They celebrated their wedding anniversary one year with their friends. Why did they celebrate? Maybe because they had lasted so many years without killing each other.

When you have heartbreak, what’s important is that you don’t go halfway. Go all the way down. Don’t take pills that keep you in limbo. Cry out all the feelings. Then your own energy for life will put you up again. You become stronger.

I change so many houses and places where I live; I change them like I change socks. I don’t have this absolute, kind of, how you say, attachment. My brother, if he just has to go to holiday to sleep in different bed, for him it is a disaster. I can sleep under this table or in a five-star hotel; I don’t care.

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

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.’

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.

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.

Artists can do whatever they want!

I hate studio. For me, studio is a trap to overproduce and repeat yourself. It is a habit that leads to art pollution.

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 am thrilled Lady Gaga has helped to teach her audience about long durational work and performance art.

I don’t have tattoos, I have scars!

I want people to come to me open and vulnerable. When they come to the gallery, they have to leave their watches, their computers, their Blackberrys, iPads, iPhones, because we are so incredibly used to technology, and I wanted to remove that.