Marina Abramović Creates Art from Pain

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Marina Abramović is a pioneer in the field of performance art, using her body as both the subject and the medium. Today, we return to our special conversation with the legendary performer from her New York City apartment. To follow along with the works discussed, visit our guided, virtual exhibit at talkeasypod.com/marina-abramovic.

We start with her healing installation in Ukraine (7:45), creating art out of hardship (12:24), a Rainer Rilke poem that shaped her childhood (15:23), and the curiosity that propels her forward (23:42) in the face of sexist attacks from the press (28:59).

On the back-half, Marina reflects on her groundbreaking work in Rhythm 0 (33:39), her tolerance for pain (38:39), the deep-seated influence of her mother (39:47), finding happiness at age 75 (45:20), how her seminal piece, The Artist Is Present, lives on (47:56), and what it means to be still, together (52:30).

For thoughts, reflections, and guest suggestions, drop me a line at [email protected].

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm Santa Feisto, so welcome to the show. Today we return to our very special conversation with artist Marina Abravitch.
0:47.0	She's currently the subject of a show at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, making her the first female artist to host a major solo exhibition
0:56.4	at the 255-year-old institution.
0:59.9	The recognition is long overdue as a pioneer in performance art which she began
1:04.8	creating back in the 1970s. Throughout her career she's often tested her own
1:10.2	physical limits in ways we haven't seen in public spaces before or since.
1:16.0	And yet perhaps her most daring performance, the one that you probably know her from, is
1:21.6	her most sedentary. And the artist is present from 2009,
1:25.8	Marina sits silently at a wooden table in which a cue of people one by one sit across
1:32.1	from her in a chair waiting to be occupied.
1:34.7	Over the course of nearly three months for eight hours a day, inside the Moma Atrium in New York
1:40.1	City, she met the gaze of over a thousand strangers, many of whom were moved to tears in
1:46.1	her presence.
1:47.5	The piece would garner Marina international recognition, catapulting performance art into a larger cultural conversation, a conversation that continues
1:57.5	here today on our show. As both Marina and I discuss her five decades of groundbreaking work and how she continues to create art
2:06.4	out of hardship at the age of 76.
2:09.4	I sat down with her last year inside her New York City apartment and to help illustrate exactly
2:16.0	what we're talking about we've put together a virtual exhibit displaying some of the
2:20.4	pieces discussed in this conversation.
2:23.0	If you'd like to follow along as you listen, you can visit our website at talk easy pod.com.
2:29.0	That's talk easy pod.com.
2:32.0	We've also included a link in the description of this episode.
	...

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