Marina Abramović: A Visual Biography

Marina Abramović, the trailblazing performance artist, is joined by author Katya Tylevich to discuss their new book, Marina Abramović: A Visual Biography.

Marina Abramović is a trailblazing conceptual artist who, for five decades, has lifted performance art from the margins, through her explorations of the limits of the body, the possibilities of the mind, and the relationship and boundaries between performer and audience.

Abramović and Tylevich discuss how the book's unique approach made the artist nervous, superstitions, confronting fears, her relationship with her mother, and her journey from a shy child in Belgrade desperate for a nose like Brigitte Bardot to her position as an internationally acclaimed artist. Along the way there are also tales of a limb-hungry washing machine, the merits of living to 100 and the Netherlands’ laid back approach to issuing passports.

00:00 | Introduction by Southbank Centre Artistic Director Mark Ball
03:44 | Conditions for book
05:51 | Conditions for talk
06:41 | Introduction to Marina Abramović and author Katya Tylevich
08:38 | “This book made you nervous?”
12:20 | “Why do you keep everything?”
13:21 | Marina’s Superstitions
15:05 | First collection of images
17:18 | Leaving home at 29 and creating work in Amsterdam
25:52 | Second collection of images
26:08 | Josip Broz Tito’s Song
29:18 | “A shy little girl scared to walk down the street”
31:55 | The washing machine story
36:02 | Audience Question: “Your relationship with pain”
40:38 | Third collection of images
45:40 | Close to death
47:56 | Audience Question: Why has it taken so long to get where you are?
51:32 | Audience Question: “Do you think art has been therapeutic for you?”
53:58 | Audience Question: “Can I have coffee with you?”
54:39 | Audience Question: “AI and deep fake technology in art”
56:31 | Audience Question: “How does one face death gracefully?”
58:54 | What if you had stayed in Yugoslavia?
01:01:06 | Finding your medium
01:04:55 | First painting lesson
01:07:17 | First day at art school
01:08:37 | Audience Question: “Do you have any regrets?”
01:09:49 | “What have I done with my life?”
01:18:38 | The Putin joke

The conversation begins with a short film, one of a number specially curated for the evening, which serve to draw us further into Abramović’s art works.

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