Latest Marina Abramovic Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

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

  Marina Abramovic

  Artist

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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

  Art, Long, Consciousness

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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.

  Marina Abramovic

  Grandmother, Thinking, Funeral

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I always do big birthday things. In three years, I'm 70. I'm going to do something outrageous. In America, everyone's always hiding their age.

  Marina Abramovic

  Age, Hiding

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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!

  Marina Abramovic

  Mother, Thinking, Gold

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Do you know what's most interesting? Working with the very strong restrictions of the institution. In the Renaissance, the aristocrats would order paintings from the artist. They would order the Crucifixion of Jesus. The restrictions were amazing. Jesus had to be in the middle, three apostles on the left, four apostles on the right - and still you had masterpieces. It's really interesting to work within restriction, and see what you can do with restriction.

  Marina Abramovic

  Jesus, Strong, Artist

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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.

  Marina Abramovic

  Bullshit, Hours, Train

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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.

  Marina Abramovic

  Pain, Unbelievable, Pension

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• When I was young, I couldn't think about ballet because I had to focus on my own field. But once you secure your own performance area, you can indulge yourself in different territories. Fashion is one. And ballet is absolutely a fantasy, because it deals with the bodies in a different way.

  Marina Abramovic

  Fashion, Thinking, Focus

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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

  Marina Abramovic

  Willpower, Term, Short Term

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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.

  Marina Abramovic

  Bored

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• There has been evolution in my work. In the beginning I was very much busy with the physical body and the limits of the physical body but that somehow naturally led me to the mental body and how I could deal with that. Stillness is so much harder, especially for three months. It was a big challenge. As a performer it is the most difficult experience one can have. And the interactive experience with the public made it even harder.

  Marina Abramovic

  Challenges, Evolution, Busy

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• Americans aren't accepting of black humor, it's terrible.

  Marina Abramovic

  Black, Accepting, Terrible

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

• My memoirs are full of humor, I had to change jokes because it was a little too dark.

  Marina Abramovic

  Dark, Littles, Memoir

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

• I really like dark, politically incorrect humor.

  Marina Abramovic

  Dark

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

• Dali Lama said, 'when you open the heart of the person with humor, you can tell him the most truth. But if you tell him truth without humor, the heart closes.'

  Marina Abramovic

  Heart, Said, Lama

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

• One thing I learned from his holiness the Dali Lama is the importance of humor.

  Marina Abramovic

  Holiness, Importance, Lama

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

• My work is immaterial. It's not painting, it's not sculpture, it's emotions. I'm giving you something to experience yourself.

  Marina Abramovic

  Experience Yourself, Giving, Sculpture

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

• If you look at the lives of artists, sitting in nature, painting, having the freedom. I think it's over. I think we're living in such a difficult moment of human development. Artists have more responsibility than ever before.

  Marina Abramovic

  Responsibility, Thinking, Artist

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

• If we consider art as oxygen in our society, we have to deliver this oxygen.

  Marina Abramovic

  Art, Oxygen, Our Society

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

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

  Marina Abramovic

  Responsibility, Artist, Past

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

• 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.

  Marina Abramovic

  People, Trying, Messages

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

• 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.

  Marina Abramovic

  Country, Village, India

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

• 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

  Art, Thinking, Cities

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

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

  Marina Abramovic

  Hurt, Western Culture, Needs

  Source: www.marieclaire.com