Marina Abramović

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0:12Welcome to This Cultural Life, the series in which the world's leading creative people choose the most important influences and experiences that have inspired their own work. I'm John Wilson, and my guest in this episode is the internationally renowned conceptual artist Marina Abramovich. For over more than five decades, she's used her own body as her artistic medium, exploring the human condition in works that are often feats of endurance, exhaustion and pain. She's put herself in danger at the mercy of audiences, sat in silence in a gallery for weeks on end and once walked the Great Wall of China, all in the name of art.

0:49We met when she was in the UK for the opening of a solo show of her work, the inaugural exhibition at a new London gallery called Moco Museum.

1:02Marina Abramovich, welcome to This Cultural Life. I'm really very happy to be here. It's great to have you here. For over 50 years, you have put yourself at the centre of your work and you have very often put yourself in some very dangerous situations. If you met somebody who didn't know you or your work, how would you describe your art? you know most of the people who know the work but don't know me they're afraid to meet me the most of people who know me but they don't know the work they are shocked because it's always like almost like two different persons because in real life i'm hilarious funny i am normal actually in almost old-fashioned way but then you come with the work and it's something different so it's really enigmatic you know but if you met somebody on a plane and they said who are you what do you do how would you describe it in a nutshell i always say that i'm a nurse from new zealand a nurse yeah nurse from new zealand who i come to your country to study health program and then nobody asked me anything because there's no way that i can describe what i'm doing and this is like really end of every conversation is it just too hard to explain the sort of work it's very hard to explain but you know i love my work and i will never do anything else we'll explore the work over the course of this conversation but let's start at the beginning you were born in Belgrade in 1946.

2:21Tell me about your childhood and what was then at the time when you were born communist Yugoslavia. You know I didn't know better but looking backwards when I you know left I saw this very gloomy place very dark and very grey. Everybody looked like a liver sick or something with some kind of strange disease and the walls was always painted kind of greyish so doesn't really help. So this was really, you know, the childhood with my mother and father who was constantly, you know, busy with their job, their most politicians and working. They were politicians. Yes, and also they've been national heroes and been partisans in the Tito time and so on.

3:03So when I was born, I was giving immediately to my grandmother until I was six. My grandmother hated communism passionately, been in the church all the time, which was completely not loud in those days, but she didn't care. And I with her. So I was brought to the family only when my brother was born, when he was six. And then, you know, I didn't really experience much love. And I was very lonely, a melancholic child. Just tell me something about your parents, because as you say, hailed as national heroes after the war, because they had both been anti-fascist fighters, partisans. My father was communist before the war.

3:39He was in prison of his communist ideas. And And he came from a very poor family and true communist. My mother came from a very rich family, very bourgeois, and she was in Switzerland to study. And then she got communist ideas because it was very fashionable in Switzerland to be communist at that time. They met him during the war. And how much of their stories about fighting in the war as being part of the partisans did you know about when you were growing up? You know, my father was only talking about war, and I know everything. and we have to look at all these partisan movies and Nazi movies.

4:14And, oh, my God, I was, like, full of this. It was only television. You start eight in the evening and all it was about war. And so I know the stories by heart. My mother never talked about war, absolutely never. And only when she died I actually realized how brave she was, but she didn't want to talk about it. How did the stories of your mother's bravery impact on you and the work that you went on to make in later life, do you think? I got the courage from mother and father and also this entire kind of education that actually my private life doesn't mean anything. That really is important to sacrifice for the cause, for the greatest ideas than your own private thing.

4:53So that was really in my bloodstream, you know, what I'm going to do in this life, what is my message, what I, as an artist, was very important. And then incredible discipline that I went through, you know, my childhood. that was posed by my mother actually. By your mother? Yeah, by my mother, that I have to be always the best and it's always somebody better than me and I have to achieve so much. The discipline, so she was particularly strict. Absolutely strict. And harsh with you? And harsh and strict and everything else. But the looking backwards was so hard. But at the same time, I'm actually so glad that I actually have all this because I really have stamina and I really have courage and I really have determination.

5:33And that keep me all my life sane, especially what I'm doing in my work. Looking back now, was it a happy childhood, do you think? No, it was a terrible childhood. But my theory, the worse childhood you have, the better artists you get. I mean, who made anything from happiness? Nobody. I mean, look, history of art, all these artists. To have a terrible childhood, there's always some disasters that you have to overcome. Are you now looking at your childhood through the prism of adult experience? Yes. Or did you know at the time you were unhappy as a child? I was always crying and I was always unhappy.

6:05And I remember that for me the most important was my books. And I was writing poetry and I was painting very early. My first exhibition was I was 14 years old. I was painting my dreams. All of these things was really important. And one thing about my mother, that she gave me all this education. I can see the theatre, I can see the opera, I can see the classic concerts. So I was very much involved in the culture. And your mother took you to those cultural events? Never, father. Father was interested always in the war stories and talking to the soldiers and maybe roasting the pig in the backyard.

6:41Your mother was introducing you to opera and music and theatre, but also, as you say, was very harsh with you. I'm wondering, because in so many of your works you have inflicted pain upon yourself, cutting yourself with knives, risking self-immolation, making yourself lose consciousness. Was that work, do you think, at the time, a way of dealing with this pain of childhood? First of all, for me, I was very, very lucky to discover body as a center of my work. And I discovered in very early stage. And I never doubted it was the right thing. Even in that time, performance was seen absolutely like no any form of art.

7:20And it took me 55 years to actually become any form of art. And I'm very proud of that. But it's very important in that time, my study of the other cultures, talking about shamanism, Australian Aborigines, talking about rituals in old cultures, that all the ceremonies go through the very, very difficult, actually physical stages, even clinical death sometimes, in order to jump to another state of consciousness. I was interested in that, how a physical body can go push to the limits without dying, but experience that kind of different state of consciousness, without using drugs, as I never use drugs, I never drink, stuff like that.

7:58So this was the really reason to me. Not anything that I'm punishing myself for because of my mother or all the bullshit. It's not reason at all. To me, it was interesting what body is, human body, and my body was closest to me to understand. You don't think there's any link at all to your childhood? No, absolutely not. Because you've written, even in your memoir, about having been beaten by your mother as a child. So what? Many kids have been beaten, but I didn't create my career because I've been beaten by my mother. Definitely not. It's so much deeper than that. You know, like the very famous piece, Rhythm Zero, when I put the pistol on the table and you can do whatever you want, including killing me.

8:35It was not because of my mother. This was because I was so outraged how performance was not seen as a really important form of art. So I was saying, what if I do absolutely nothing? Let's see what public going to do. Is public really going to kill me? We should just explain this piece. You're lying in a room surrounded by objects. The audience were invited to come in and do whatever they wish to do with you, using the objects that surrounded you. For six hours, and they are for pleasure and for pain, and pistol with a bullet. And so there's a pistol, a loaded gun? No, bullet was there. Outside, they have to load it.

9:13So some people were stroking you or spraying you with perfume or being very gentle. But then ultimately, somebody picked up that gun, loaded the gun with the bullet. Not only they cut me, they drink my blood. They try to burn the cotton around my neck. They put the water on me. They carry me around, you know, and put me on the table and stop the knife between my legs. I mean, it was very violent. And this is the public, not me. So I just wanted to reflect public on themselves, you know. And those really liberate me from that kind of criticism. Okay, you know, I'm absolutely doing nothing. It's up to you what you're going to do.

9:49And I was 23 years old. But what were you hoping to reveal to either yourself or to the public? Exactly that actually public can kill you if they give them tools. I was lucky I was not. I will not do this performance again. But why did you do it at the time? Because I had the courage. I had determination. I want to die for my art. I was young, all the right reasons. You were prepared to die for your life. I was prepared to die. You see, I had so many different periods in my work. The first period of my work, when I discovered that I want to work with my body as a main object, the subject of my work, because when you understand your body, you understand the universe.

10:31And then when I really, you know, experiment with pushing my body to the limits and then finally working with Ulai, after that, my work completely changed. Ula is your ex-husband or was your ex-husband? We never married. Oh, sorry, your partner? Just partner in the work and love. And then after that, I understand that actually anything physically you do, it's so easy. Everything emotionally is so much more harder. So my entire work turned into much more static and emotional, exploring emotional subjects of my body.

11:09on this cultural life marina abramovich i asked my guest to choose the most significant influences and experiences that have inspired their own work and your first choice for this program is a book the idiot by dostoevsky when did you first read it i started reading idiot when i was finish it and it's a big book because the reality of the book becomes my own reality. We have lots of books in the house. My entire Russian library was by my father. And entire French library was by my mother. So I was reading both. But Idiot, I remember at that time he was on the shell. And when I was 14, you know, my boss' parents slept with the guns next to their beds.

11:57I mean, they always slept with weapons. This was normal. Because you never know. I mean, we are talking, they just came out of the war. So to me, that was like a normal thing in our country. Everybody had weapons. So my father, when I was 14, gave me first time the pistol as a present for my 14th birthday. It was very small. Handle was made of ivory and silver, the rest. And it was called this opera pistol that you can actually have in the opera a little back. I mean, right now thinking about this, why I should have a pistol in opera? That was very funny. But anyway, and then he wanted to teach me to shoot.

12:37It was winter. We went to very deep snow. And I lost in the snow the pistol. And we never found it. You lost it? Yeah, in the deep snow. Your 14th birthday present. So that's the first one. Then I took the pistol from my father and with my friend. The one by his bedside? By the bed. Yeah. And we put one bullet and we play Russian roulette. So we turn the thing and we click. Nothing happened to me. he turned, he clicked, nothing happened to him and then I took the pistol for fun and I shot and the bullet went straight to the idiot of Dostoevsky You shot at the bookcase and it went right through Idiot Dostoevsky and then I Had you read the book at this time?

13:20No So this led you to the book? First I shot and then I read and then I remember I start trembling uncontrollably because I re-understood what actually we did You could have killed yourself Yeah. Okay. But hang on. Sorry. Not bad story. Yeah, but I need to just rewind. A, it's quite shocking to hear that you were given a pistol for your 14th birthday. Opera. For an opera pistol. Small. But it still worked. It was still something that could kill. Yeah. But then you play Russian roulette with a friend and you're still around the same age, 15, 14, 15. And then I read the book. What would possess you to play Russian roulette knowing the possible consequences?

14:03You know, but you're a child and you kind of like to play and it's dangerous and whatever, you know. For the same reason, I will wait when I cross the street that light goes red and then I run. It's just a kind of adrenaline thing. So the bullet went through the idiot Dostoevsky. Did you feel like you should then read the book? Yes, it was kind of a sign. And there's something that's really incredibly important to me, the discovery, that one of the main characters have epileptic attack. And he described the state before this epileptic attack. And the state he described, the state of complete luminosity, that everything around him is in perfect balance.

14:45And everything has its space and symmetry. And that's so overwhelming that the body can't take it and then turn into epileptic attack. And that was such an interesting thing to me to talk, thinking about, because much later, when I'd done very, very long durational work of art, I came to that kind of states too, but without epileptic attack. But that idea that actually there is a body have to be prepared. You can't just do it at once. But this was really interesting that actually the state of complete synchronicity is possible. And this was a reflection of that little passage that I read in Dostoevsky.

15:27So that book, Idiot, has so many aspects in my life. This is why I mention it. And the protagonist of Dostoevsky's protagonist is the idiot. He's actually a very simple character, very happy and guileless character, and people presume he must be an idiot. Yeah, exactly. Did The Idiot lead you to other Dostoevsky novels? You know, then I read everything, you know, especially his diaries. You know, this whole Russian story and Slavic soul is so connected to me. We have this permanent melancholy. We are not happy when you're in our country. We are also not happy when outside of the country. There's all this kind of cosmic search for whatever perfection and happiness which never comes.

16:10You know, Dostoevsky's story is incredible that he was so poor. And he would always go to the different rich Russians, you know, to get some money to survive. And he was a great writer, so they would give him the money. The daughter is sick and wife have tuberculosis and it's all misery. And he loved to gamble. And he always, you know, can't resist to gamble. One of these accounts give him a huge amount of money. And he say, you know what, I'm sick and tired that you come. I give you this and this will solve all your problems. And just pay the rent, pay the medicine for your family and just get better.

16:41So he got this really serious money. He's passing gambling house and he looked and said, but maybe just once. You know, I will put everything on one something and if I get dinner, my problem will really be solved. So he go there and he lose, of course. So he's miserable again. But one thing that he writes in diary, and this is so mind-blowing for me, that every time he loses, he have orgasm. What? He have orgasm. What, spontaneously? When you lose. Right. He just had, he just come. Right. But not when you win. Okay. So this is plain entire Russian situation. But what? I have no idea how we're going to put this in the program.

17:28You put it in there, Marina. But the kids are interested. In what way was Dostoevsky, and the idiot in particular, an influence on your work? What did you take from him, do you think? First of all, I hate world influence because I don't think that anything influences my work. You know, artists always influence with something. So if you're influenced by any artist, that means you're influenced by second hand, but not by source. For me, the source is really nature, nature and ancient cultures. That's a really serious influence for me. So you have inspirations rather than artistic influences then?

18:03Yes, because for me, I hate studio to start with. Studio is, for me, the trap. You go to studio like a banker, employee, or the, you know, like in post office, and then you sit there rationally thinking how great work I'm going to do and how inspirational it's going to be. And bullshit doesn't happen. You just produce more and more work and become art pollution. For me, the work comes from life. So I do life, I get the idea, and only the idea who really disturb me and I'm afraid of, not the one I like, I don't like, I don't give a shit because it's always the same, you're repeating yourself constantly, but something that is like so demanding that can stay for a long time obsessional in my system that's the idea I'm going to do then I go to studio and I realise but I will never enter the studio before that

18:55I'm going to move on to two films that you have chosen for this programme and I hesitate to call them influencers now given what you have just said I have to interrupt you you set up this programme and they have to call influence. I will do everything to destroy this idea. There's no influence. Inspirations then. Are there artworks that maybe have inspired you in some way? Let's talk about two films that you have chosen. One is Teorema by the Italian director Pasolini and the other one is Last Year in Marienbad by Alain Rene, the French New Wave director, which was made earlier, I think, 1961.

19:31Let's start with that one, the Alain Rene film. When did you first see it? When it came out? Yeah, I was very lucky that we had a cinema in Belgrade and the director of this, Kinett Take, was so passionate about film. So everything new come, we will have a chance to see it right away. So I will go there to see all Kurosawa, Paragiano, wherever the films, and then came Marienbad, I went to see. So I love this film. It's really something wonderful about that. Un grand palace international, immense, baroque, We should just explain it's a very stylised film, beautifully shot, black and white. It's a very luxurious hotel, and three main protagonists, there's a woman and a man who arrives, and it's clear in his mind they have had some kind of relationship and an affair the year before.

20:23Exactly. I don't know which room you were talking. I never was with you in any room. I don't want to remember you. Because you lost. But this one scene that I like so much that stay in my mind, this is talking about symmetry. This is this huge park and everything is symmetrical. And then he said, I was walking this road and everything was symmetrical and I got lost. Actually, I have occurred in the dreams about symmetry in my life, that I'm always actually have this nightmare that I'm breaking symmetry somehow. and there's no loud to break symmetry and then I wake up in completely a nightmare.

21:04Like I will go to the kind of military, you know, thinking about my mother and father, the military parade and I will just walk and all soldiers have a perfect uniform and everybody's perfect. And I will take from each of them a bottom and throw it away and create this symmetry. And then breaking the symmetry, thinking about my own work, I really have the kind of affinity to symmetry but I'm also interested in breaking it and just to actually confront the nightmare. But it came from Maribald, you see. It comes from the Maribald, which is, as I say, very stylised and it's a very beautiful film and full of symmetry.

21:39The scenes of a large staircase and the shot is right from the middle of the staircase and the room, of course, is symmetrical. So that impacted on your imagination. And then missing the point and losing yourself in the park. What about the other film that you have chosen? The Pasolini film. Pia Rema, which is set in a grand Italian house, the British actor Terence Stamp, looking absolutely beautiful, arrives as a... Young Terence Stamp. Young Terence Stamp. Very young. Nameless, I think he's just known as the visitor. And he seduces everybody in the house, the maid and then the mother and the father, the son and the daughter, and then leaves.

22:16It was a very controversial film. I think the Vatican denounced it, and the Italian government even tried to prosecute Pasolini for obscenity. This is an incredible, wonderful movie. I love it. I mean, he arrived and he's so sexual and so young. The son's tempered look fantastic. And then everybody fall in love. And he make love to the mother, to the father, to the brother, to the sister. They're all desperate and all unhappy in this family situation. And he's doing something which is good, but complete absence of morality. That's what is wonderful because he didn't do anything wrong. But looking from outside is kind of outrage, you know.

22:55And then comes the maid. And to me, the maid is like absolutely the crown of this movie because she's virgin. But she just noticed incredible desire, sexual desire, that she only had for Jesus but nobody else. And then she literally goes to her room and opens her legs and he makes love to her too.

23:28And that moment she leaves the house, she actually stops eating. At that moment she becomes saint. And she went to the roof to levitate in her village and eat only green grass. It's a very strange film, we should say. That was like amazing that the desire can go into the kind of supernatural power of levitation. The sex as an actual revelation. It's fantastic. And this, you know why I'm interested in that one. Because right now, in the 11th of October next year, in a big factory space in Manchester, you know, during the festival, I'm doing this huge project called Balkan Erotic Epic. And that's really based on my study of paganism and communism and all of this in Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slavic cultures.

24:13how the sexual organs, vaginas, phalluses, actually been used, not in pornographic, you know, way that we are, how we are seeing it, but in old-fashioned way, how to create with the divine forces and nature, you know, how the woman showing vagina in the rain can stop the rain. I mean, that's... And you want to try and stop the rain in Manchester? Oh, definitely. I hope all England. You know it rains in Manchester more than anywhere else in this country. You've got a... That's a tough task. But it's going to be such a scandal in Britain because now at Royal Academy we had just two nudes already.

24:45There was so much discussion about that. But this was going to be much bigger. Do you set out to shock people? No. My entire work is really to open questions, not to have always right answers, but really put your mind to see things in a different way. So many people are not ready for that and become shocking. But actually, what's the problem with nudity? Absolutely nothing. And yet the subjects or maybe the approach to those questions, you're sort of kind of always kind of skirting around or using taboo subjects. And you do provoke extreme reactions in people, don't you? But one thing that I have to tell you, you can't put me in any box.

25:23Because, you know, artists, when they develop their career and that one work is successful, they used to produce this work forever and ever and ever, you know, because the public understand the consumer buying it. But I don't do that. My art is nothing to do with commodity and art ever. You say you don't like being put in a box. I mean, if you were to ask many people, what does Marina Abramovich do? They'll probably say she's a performance artist. Do you not regard it as performance art? I think I'm really artist because performance is one thing, but I'm making interactive objects. I'm making video.