VCUQatar Presents Marina Abramović

In her lecture, Marina Abramović will discuss the context of her work in the past, present, and future of performance art with a focus on immaterial and long-durational art forms and their development in The Marina Abramović Institute, which is currently in its fundraising phase.

Since the beginning of her career in Belgrade during the early 1970s, Abramović has pioneered performance as a visual art form, creating some of the most important early works. The body has always been both her subject and medium. Exploring her physical and mental limits in works that ritualize the simple actions of everyday life, she has withstood pain, exhaustion and danger in her quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. From 1975–88, Abramović and the German artist Ulay performed together, dealing with relations of duality. Abramović returned to solo performances in 1989.

She has presented her work at major institutions in the US and Europe, including the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven,1985; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1990; Neue National Galerie, Berlin, 1993, and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1995. She has also participated in many large-scale international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1976 and 1997) and Documenta VI, VII and IX, Kassel (1977, 1982 and 1992). Recent performances include “The House With The Ocean View” at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York in 2002, and the Performance “7 Easy Pieces” at Guggenheim Museum, New York in 2005. In 2010, Abramović had her first major U.S. retrospective and simultaneously performed for over 700 hours in “The Artist is Present” at Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Abramović was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 1997 Venice Biennale for the video installation and performance “Balkan Baroque.” In 2008 she was decorated with the Austrian Commander Cross for her contribution to Art History.  In addition to these and other awards, Abramović also holds multiple honorary doctorates from institutions around the world.

Ongoing and upcoming projects include the theater piece “The Life and Death of Marina Abramović” directed by Robert Wilson, which premiered and toured Europe beginning in 2011, and which will be performed in 2013 at the Luminato Festival in Toronto and at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City.  Her collaboration with the Paris Opera for the restaging of Bolero premiered in May, 2013. Abramović is also planning to open the Marina Abramović Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art (MAI) in Hudson, New York in 2014.