How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S18, Ep6 Marina Abramovic: one of the greatest living artists on performance, passion and power

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

It is impossible to put into words how much I adored this conversation. Which, in a way, is apt because Marina Abramovic is one of our greatest living artists and renowned for expressing through her work, the thoughts, feelings and emotional impulses that lie beyond words. Born in 1946 in post-war Yugoslavia, she painted from the age of 14 and spent the next 50 years pushing herself to extremes of physical and mental endurance in search of fundamental truths. Last month, her exhibition opened at the Royal Academy in London - the first solo show by a woman in the RA’s main galleries. But if all this sounds quite serious, fear not - in person, Abramovic is a wonderful, engaging and light-hearted presence, full of wisdom and profound thoughts but also a lot of giggles. We talk about fear and belonging, love and heartbreak (and how to get over someone), introversion and performance, and she teaches me all about what Christopher Columbus can tell us about failure. One of my favourite ever episodes - and that's saying something. -- Marina Abramovic at the Royal Academy runs until 1 January 2024. Book your tickets here. A full schedule of performances can be found here. -- I'm going on tour! To AUSTRALIA, mate! You can now purchase tickets to see me live at Sydney Opera House on 26th February 2024 or the Arts Centre Melbourne on 28th February 2024. -- How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted and produced by Elizabeth Day. To contact us, email [e-mail] -- Social Media: Elizabeth Day @elizabday How To Fail @howtofailpod Marina Abramovic Institute @abramovicinstitute Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and

journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Marina Abramovich is one of our greatest living artists, a woman whose work explores presence, pain and possibility. Her performance art invites us to question both the limits of the body and the unquantifiable nature of the spirit. Over the past 50 years, Abramovich has pushed herself to extremes of physical and mental endurance. Perhaps her most famous piece of art was staged in 2010 in New York's MoMA. For eight hours a day over a three-month period, she sat still and silent and invited members of the public to sit opposite her. Some stayed for five minutes, others for an entire day. Some cried, others smiled. It attracted over 850,000 visitors, among them Lady Gaga, who brought the artist's

work to a whole new generation of admirers. Abramovich was born in 1946 in post-war Yugoslavia at the beginning of President Tito's autocratic communist regime. Her parents were strict, her father was a military general, and Abramovich had a 10pm curfew well into her 20s. Her art became her escape. She painted from the age of 14 and won a place at Belgrade's Academy of Fine Arts before moving to Amsterdam in 1976 and meeting the West German artist Ulay, a man who had become one of her most important collaborators in work and in love. Last month, her exhibition opened at the Royal Academy in London, the first solo show by a woman in the RA's main galleries. This major exhibition presents

key moments from Abramovich's career, some of which will be reprised by the next generation of performance artists trained in the Marina Abramovich method. I don't do things I only like, Abramovich says. I do things that are difficult. I am curious. Freedom is the most important thing for me, to be free of any structure that I can't break. Marina Abramovich, it is my honor to welcome you to How to Fail. What a wonderful introduction, and still I'm live. You are. You get this kind of introduction, you know, when you die. That's really great.

What I can do for this program for you? Oh, well, first of all, you are here, which I feel so honored because I feel that I am getting a reenactment of the artist is present right now in front of me. So that's all you have to do. And I'm going to ask you about your self-perceived failures. But before we get onto them, I want to ask you about that idea of freedom being so intrinsically important. Do you think that comes from having had such a restricted childhood, both in terms of the state and your family life? I really think that, you know,

in my family, everything was hiding and there was no really truth really truth you know it's so many funny stories you know from my mother who wake me up in the middle of the night if i don't sleep straight and i sleep too messy and then i have to wake up and make my bed and go back so when you know i got such an incredible control over my sleep then now when i go to hotel i just open the cover and i sleep and people don't even know i was there and I'm disciplined become embodied and but you know in the beginning I rebel everything but then later on I was actually very grateful for this discipline because discipline willpower and determination about I've been doing it was a key to performance art I could never do what I've been doing if I didn't have this kind of background, which I rebelled at the time, but then I actually appreciate now.

And then I come from a very strange background. On one side, my grandmother, who hated communism, and until I was six years old, I spent the entire time with her, doing rituals, Orthodox church, and being with somebody who is very highly religious, and then going back to the parents which are communist atheist and completely different upbringing so my father will really love everything about russia russia literature russia poets or music cinema my mother it was all about french the french literature french fashion french everything French everything. And then, you know, from all

of that, I'm kind of mixture between the grandmother and my parents. And then in all of that, I just been interested in Tibetan Buddhism. So you can imagine what kind of mix I have, you know, in all of this. You have spoken in the past about not having children and I also don't have children and how if you had have children that would have imposed strictures again on your art can you tell us about that decision was that something that you always knew yeah but this actually related to the first question about freedom I absolutely have to be free I didn't want to have any restrictions of any kind not from the first from the childhood from the parents from the from the grandmother, from the society, and then in any other way. I'm just thinking how it was an important decision not to have children because you have only one energy in your body.

And if you really want to do something completely and totally dedicated, you can't separate yourself. You know, you have so many wonderful women who start being great artists and then actually, you know, have children and completely abandon career or change career or can't put that much energy. But, you know, lately thinking about this because now I'm a completely different age, I'm thinking, you know, I don't know if I was wrong, but there are some women who actually did it with all the children. Just recently I actually found the Mary Strip. She had five children. From these five children, the four of them are actors. And I just went to see the Chekhov actually play by their children,

and she came to see it. And I was thinking, how she made it. I mean, she's an amazing actress, and she really have the children who also the actress and somehow everything works in my case would not I'm too passionate about what I'm doing and what I'm doing that was everything the art was everything to me and what you do requires such commitment bodily commitment I am a huge fan of work. So I am going to geek out a little bit. I want to talk to you about Rhythm 10 with the knife and the attempt to replicate mistakes, because I think it goes to the heart of a lot of what this podcast is about, whether we learn from mistakes, whether we are forever condemned to replicate them. But tell us what it was in essence, what you were doing. It was a really simple piece. I had the 10 knives, two tape recorder, and I was in front of the

public doing this Russian game. When you stop your knives between your fingers as fast as you can, I put one tape recorder on and I take the first knife and I do as fast as I can. And when I cut myself, I changed to second knife till all the ten knives, you know, was there. Then I start to rewind the first tape recorder, listen to the sound, put second tape recorder on, and take the same knife from the first part and do the same game and try to concentrate to actually make the same mistake again. And I only miss twice in all this game.

And the second tape recorder I put on after, which actually have the double sound with repeating the mistake. And I was thinking, and this was the idea, how I can actually put two times together with the mistake, past and present, and then just listen to that sound. It's very interesting that my first performances was always related to sound. Through sound, I actually get into the body. So the first pieces was called rhythm five, rhythm four, rhythm two, rhythm zero, and

so on and so on. It was always sound very important. This performance was so fatal. It was lots of blood, by the way, at that time. But also, this was the performance when I understood the importance of the public and how I can never do performance without public. Because if I will repeat any of these pieces before, I will never do them. But in the front of the public, I can use energy of the public actually to get this extra kind of strength

to finish the work. But I also wanted to liberate myself from the idea of pain because pain is something that in our human life we are afraid of suffering or pain and dying. This is three things that I'm always interested in, how I can stage them in the front of the public, how I can use energy of the public, go through this process and liberate myself from this fear of pain, but in the same time show to the public, go through this process and liberate myself from this fear of pain,

but in the same time, show to the public that if I can do this in my life, I become the mirror. They can do it their own. Wow. What's your relationship with pain now? Because you were telling me before we started this interview that two months ago you had an embolism and so you came to London, you can't fly, so you came by boat. Are you at peace with the idea of pain? You know, I really, really somehow can say that I master physical pain, which I never can say for mental pain. The emotional pain is something that is almost impossible, but the physical pain is possible.

You can enter into the pain and you can liberate yourself of the fear of pain and accept the pain. You know, I just had a, you know, very simple operation of the lingament on my leg, which caused incredible kind of, they call saddle embolism, that you actually die from it. They go straight to your heart. And I had three operations. I have eight blood transfusions. I was six weeks in intense care. And then I get out. And the doctors say, it's kind of a miracle. But I use everything I know about performing,

everything I know about the controlling the breathing, about the pain that I can get out of this. And now, as you see, I'm in front of you. I'm walking. And I make all the steps because you don't have an elevator, which is not easy. I know. There are so many steps to get to the studio. Not easy at all, but I did it. I'm relieved. Thank you. Rhythm Zero, that was the other one that I want to talk to you about from your work in the 1970s. This was a piece of art where you left out 72 objects.

And those 72 objects included a whip, a gun, a rose, a thorn, and you invited over a six-hour period members of the public to use your body and those objects in ways that they wanted. What did that experience teach you about humanity? The show in Royal Academy starts with the two pieces. The show in Royal Academy is not chronological. The first piece you can enter is Artists in Presence, and the second piece is Ritam Zero. And they are both pieces connected, which I'm just going to explain to you shortly. But the first piece, really, I was 23 years old, and I was angry. I was young and so, so angry. Why I was angry? I was angry because performance art didn't exist as a form of art,

completely ignored and incredibly attacked as a masochist, as a sadist, as a bullshit. The people who do performance art should be put in mental hospital and so on. There was no place for performance art. In those days, the same kind of position was video and photography. But very soon, and photography become mainstream, but performance art really didn't. So I was thinking, what if I absolutely do nothing

and put all these objects on the table, including pistol with one bullet, and, you know, if you're 23, you're ready to die for art at that time. And I put this statement on the table, I'm an object. You can use anything you want from the table, including pistol and bullet, and I'm taking all responsibility, and this is six hours. And this was like a very bold thing to do. And the public in the beginning was playing with me and, you know, giving me the rose and kiss me or whatever. And then later on, because six hours is a long time, become more and more kind of open and more and more aggressive

to the point that they will cut my clothes, they will take thorns of the roses and stab into my body, they will cut my neck and still have scarves, drink my blood, they will carry me around half naked, they will put me on the table and stab me between my legs. I think that it was happening all in Naples. And it was interesting, the stereotypes that was actually creating on me at that time was three stereotypes, mother, Madonna, and prostitute.

Exactly these three. And one of the reasons they didn't rape me, because there was a normal opening and people came with their wives, so we didn't expect anything like that. But the liberty, it was incredible. And another of the of the public doing things to me but it was interesting that women will never do anything they will tell men what to do and they will just take the handkerchief and kind of whip the blood from my body or the tears also they play with the pistol but somebody took pistol away from another person and

throw it out of the window. And I remember when six hours pass, it was two in the morning, the galleries came and said to me, it's over, because I was absolutely there, static, whatever you do, I accept it. In that moment, I start walking towards public to leave. And this was the first time that I become me. And the public literally ran out of the door. And nobody wanted to confront with me. I was brought to the hotel, and I look into the mirror, and I see a piece of gray hair. I literally got gray hair.

And I really was thinking, okay, I know now. Yes, public can kill you. If you give them elements, they can kill you. Then pass 30 years later and came, you know, artist is present. And in artist is present, I restrict public completely. Public can touch me, can talk to me, can do anything. The only can do is to have gaze, eye gaze, and as long as they want. And this was incredible.

I understood in this period of time that how the public, you can love spirit of the public or you can highlight spirit of the public. And Artist is Present was everything about highlighting spirit of the public because the eyes are the door of the soul. I learned so much in the meantime. And one thing that Artist is Present is one of the most difficult? I learned so much in the meantime. And one thing that artists present is one of the most difficult performances I've ever made in my life.

Much more difficult than the Rhythm Zero. It was six hours. This was three months. Eight hours a day, but the Friday was 10 hours with the museum is open even longer. So I really understood that it was incredible. It was more difficult than anything I'd done. But that it was really about lifting spirit of the public on a different level.

And I could only do this performance when I was 65 years old. I could not do anything earlier. I didn't have this knowledge. I didn't have this determination. I didn't have the willpower. I didn't have concentration because you have to be here and now all the time. I didn't have the willpower, I didn't have concentration, because you have to be here and now all the time.

It was really incredibly important that my age, that I could have that wisdom in order to make this piece. I'm going to ask you what now sounds like an incredibly basic question. It's whether you have more hope in humanity, or if you are more optimistic about human nature or pessimistic given those two such profound experiences do you think we are mostly good or mostly bad or is there no you know what happened in artists is present which didn't happen in any other performances in my life something that i don't want to call religious experience because i don't like religion i like spiritual experiences.

Religion for me is to do with institution and power and corruption and whatever. But I really had something which I can call unconditional love experience that I felt profound unconditional love for every human being sitting in front of me, which I never saw in my life, from child, old woman, the young man, whatever, anybody. It was this heart opening, which was, I never have anything. That really profoundly changed. I think that I have hope for humanity more than ever, and I really think that what we need to learn is how to change ourselves.

It's all about us. What we need to learn is how to change ourselves. It's all about us. You know, it's so easy to always put the claim to government or this president or that person, and we never look ourselves. It's us who have to change. If one person changes, he can change thousands, just with his own example. And this was something that I learned in this piece profoundly.

There is one snippet of video from The Artist is Present that went viral, where you are reunited with you take his hand and you cry and we see all of the emotions, all of the feelings that are encapsulated in everything that you went through together. And I wonder if I could ask you what was going through your mind when that happened? You know, first of all, Ulay was invited to be my guest of honor for the show. And I absolutely didn't expect that he would sit to be as audience. And I never break any rules in my life. I'm incredibly strict with rules.

And when he came out of blue and sit there, it was 12 years of our life in front. You know, we split in the walking great wall of China to say goodbye. It was very big love of my life. And being there, there was no rules anymore. He was somebody who was part of my life. And this is why

I put the hand and hold his hand. And this was incredibly emotional. I just lost it. I think that why it's so viral and so many people look because it's truth. You know, truth is something that touches. The public understands when something is fake.

You know, you have to be real. And this was more real than anything I can even imagine. And he now passed away two years ago. So we have one room here in Royal Academy dedicated to him. Oh, that's beautiful. Well, we're going to talk more about him. I'm so sorry that he's passed away. You shared a birthday, the 30th of November, and you were twin souls in so many ways. And I wonder if you still feel that twinning, even though he's no longer here in a physical sense, do you still feel his spiritual presence?

You know, our relation was just not easy one. You know, it's not like all the roses. We had a great love. We have great hate. We had a huge court case, which I lost completely, you know, which I want to kill him. And I was really angry. And then finally, something really incredibly important happened. You know, when you say, oh, I forgive somebody,

it's one thing is easy to say, but it's very difficult to really do it, really with your heart. And I think actually two of us after court case, after we stopped talking to each other, after all this mess, we actually came to the point to forgive each other, and we did. And when that forgiveness happened, then really it was incredibly beautiful relationship till he died.

And I'm so happy that I actually understood what forgiveness meant. We'll come back to him and we'll come back to the Great Wall of China later. Let's get onto your first failure, which concerns a communist parade. So what happened? You were a young girl and you were marching in a communist parade. Wait, wait, wait, wait. First, I wanted to ask you the question. I want to know why you actually

doing this questions on failure. I am so intrigued. Can you explain to me the background? I want to know. Thank you so much for asking. The background of this podcast came from feeling like a failure in my own life, where I was about to turn 39. And the decade of my 30s had been one of immense transition, where I had got married to the wrong person I had tried and failed to have children I'd got into a new relationship and then that one ended brutally for me just before I turned 39 and although I had had some professional success and I was working as a Sunday newspaper journalist and I'd written a couple of books I didn't feel that I was living my purpose and I didn't feel that I was living my purpose. And I didn't feel that I was where I wanted to be personally. And I felt like a total failure according to the life plan I thought I had had

for myself. And so then I wanted to have conversations about that, about how other people got through failure. And I realized through those conversations that I was having with wonderful people and friends of mine, when I looked back at those failures and those moments of pain, I had survived them all. And that made me feel really strong and powerful. And so I thought, well, actually, maybe there's a way of redefining what we perceive of as failure as something that if handled correctly can show us our true purpose and kind of illuminate our path forward and that was the start of the thinking and I was listening to a few podcasts at that time to help me through my heartbreak and I realized that this form enabled that sort of intimate conversation

because very like your work, we are present. I am present and I can speak and ask the questions that I want. And all we have from the guest is their words and their presence. And there's something very beautiful about that because I'm not editing anything. And so I decided to launch a podcast. I drew my own logo. So that's a bit of Elizabeth Day art on the microphone. And I launched the podcast and it's ironic that a podcast called How to Fail has become one of the most successful things I've ever done. But I think as you were saying, it's because it's about truth. It's about unraveling this projection of curated success that so much of society is now about and talking about the things that make us vulnerable and human.

And so that's the story behind it. I love, this is the one of the reason that I wanted to do this with you, because the failure is a big deal in my life. I love the whole idea about failure. Because for me, if you wanted to go to unknown territory, the place you've never been before, you have to also have the factor that you can fail. Yes.

And this is kind of wonderful. And then let fail. And then stand up and then do another fail and stand up and do another fail. You know, my biography, which is also translated here in Britain, is called Walking Through the Walls, because I literally walk through the walls. I see the wall, then I break it, and then another wall, and I break that wall. But also, you can find on the end that you completely misjudge everything, and you're kind of really in total shit. But that's incredible, powerful thing because that experience, you know, is transcendental. They bring you to stand up and try again and try again. To me, one of the greatest stories of the failure is the story of

Columbus, which I like so much. And I always remember that, you know, Columbus was sent from the Queen of Spain to find a new route to India for the spices. And nobody wanted to come with him for the simple reason that the idea was that Earth was a plate and you can fail off the Earth. This was, to me, incredible, fail off the Earth. This is more crazy failure than just go on the moon with all this equipment and science now is It's easy. But that was something different.

So the only people who want to come with him, it was the convicts from the prisons. So they opened the prisoners and gave them to go with Columbus. So Columbus arrived to the little island called El Hierro. And this tiny island, they had the last supper before they take this journey. tiny island, they had their last supper before they take this journey. I'm always trying to invent and imagine that supper, eating that last meal, that you can actually fall from the earth, fall from the earth's where into nothingness. And they take this trip, and oops, they find America. And that's the thing. If they never make that kind of journey, they will never find America. If they never make that kind of journey, they will never find America.

The failing is essential for actually discovering and for discovering the new ways and then creating something which nobody ever done. So this is so important. So I actually give you three examples of very funny failures for me. Now I'm thinking that actually maybe I should give you different examples, but now we have three of them. We can talk for hours. I know you need to go back and install your show, but we can talk about other failures as well.

But first of all, I just want to say thank you so much for that transcendental moment. I didn't know that story about Columbus. And you're so right. Failure is all about discovery of new lands. And sometimes the most surprising and most powerful territory you discover is your true self. And you're absolutely right. We're of the same mind that you can't have an adventure without taking the risk that you might fail.

No. And, you know, there is a funny Japanese business book, The Advice to Businessmen. his business book, the advice to businessmen. You see, the amount of success in your business have to be reciprocal to the amount of failure you're taking because you have to risk, and that's the whole thing. And that, to me, is a big deal. I've been teaching for a long time, not anymore, but I teach. And what I was doing to my students,

I would ask them to buy 1,000 sheets of paper and a little table and little basket for the rubbish. And then every day, at least for one hour, to write the ideas. The one, the ideas they like, they put on the right side of the table. The ideas they don't, they put in the basket. And then after three months, I don't look at the ones they like. I'm not interested at all. We go in to look at the basket. And that's what they reject. They are the ones who have failed. They're really afraid of doing it. They have ones they like i'm not interested at all we go into look in the basket and that would reject they are the ones who have failed they're really afraid of doing it they had the best ideas

the one amazing the one in the basket and that's what we should do we should always look in our basket oh my gosh that's so amazing we should do the things that we're fearful of yes that we think we can't do oh gosh i wish i'd met you years ago. You could have saved me a lot of trouble. Peyton, it's happening. We're finally being recognized for being very online. It's about damn time. I mean, it's hard work being this opinionated. And correct. You're such a Leo.

All the time. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions. If you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second. Then join me, Hunter Harris. And me, Peyton Dix, the host of Wondery's newest podcast, Let Me Say This. As beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mess, we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news.

Like, it's not a question of if Drake got his body done, but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the B-sides. Don't you worry. The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise.

Mother. A mother to many. Follow Let Me Say This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad-free by joining Wondery Plus on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? This is a time of great foreboding. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago.

These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago set in motion a chain of gruesome events and sparked cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis. cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis. Join us as we unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Well, let's talk about the failures that you have sent me and if you decide i like them because i think you are such an impressive figure for so many of us and these are failures that are humorous and that make you so human and the first one concerns this communist parade so it takes us

right back to tito's yugoslavia and you were in a communist parade what happened first of all with that time I'm talking 14 15 I don't even remember I think I was like 15 I look very tall they call me giraffe I this big nose a very short cut hair really ugly little pimples I had the flat shoes I have to have orthopedic shoes which are really ugly and they're made communist way and then my mother in order to have them very solid is like she would make the little metal part in the front and in the back look like horse kind of shoe so when i walk you can hear me for miles that i'm arriving which which was really horrible, and take big glasses because I didn't see anything. Anyway, this is how I look.

So now our school was chosen to do the parade for the Tito, which is like a huge thing. It's always 1st of May, and then, you know, you have to kind of parade in the front of the Tito as the best school of that year. And we was marching for almost a few months to train. You have to do together with the drumming, and you have to do exactly the walk,

and then you have to look to the right and smile to Tito, and then look to the front, all of the very, very strict directions. So that morning that we got gathered before we're going to get this parade, the part of this metal thing got detached and the piece of my leather sole actually got loose. And when I was doing this parade in the morning, just before we start real parade in front of Tito, I was going flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop,

and they look at me and say, you out. I was so ashamed. And I was so incredibly felt that it was the biggest failure that I'm not able to march in the front of Tito on this parade because of these stupid orthopedic shoes. And I remembered incredible unhappiness and crying for weeks because of that. This was like really little failure that I remember the first one that I could not deliver what I was expecting to deliver. So interesting that then the context of your thinking changes, but also the context of 20th century history. And so bizarre to feel looking back at that young Marina Abramovich

that the thing that upset her the most that is still in her mind almost seven decades later is failing in a communist parade in the communist parade and then immediately come the next failure the next failure is you know i was very intellectual and very kind of i was president of a chess section in our school chess sports the game and our school win and actually my section win and we were so proud and i was chosen to go to the stage with all schools together, huge, huge auditorium. It was the biggest in that.

And the first of the biggest now I'm used to, not that time, that I have to go, again, the same orthopedic shoes, same look, you know, and all of this, and incredibly, I was so incredibly shy. I could not believe I became a performance artist later. I was so incredibly shy. I could not believe that I became a performance artist later. I was so shy. I have to go to get this chessboard from my class. And that bastard, whoever was giving me these chessboards, he was just piling one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

I don't know how many, and I was holding them very carefully, and I turned to go off the stage, and, you know, I don't know whatever happened with the same shoes i slip and i fall down and all chess boards just go on with incredible sound and all the things fall off and entire auditorium love i mean all of them this was the funniest this was like a slapstick this was like a like tom and j. This was like, you know, whoever, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton scene. And I go off the stage and not getting out of home for one month. So you felt shame and embarrassment? Incredible shame, embarrassment.

And it's incredible. And that shame and embarrassment that I could not even walk on the street if somebody's behind me because I felt I would kind of slip or do something wrong. So from that moment to being in front of the public and doing performances, it's a huge step. It's astonishing. It's incredible. I'm impressed by myself because then I was painting and the painting you're very protected in your studio.

But I remember the moment that I done performance, that moment that I didn't present myself, but I present a body, universal body. It doesn't matter if I am fat or skinny or old or young. I didn't care. This was the body. This was the content. All of this fear disappeared like never been there.

Do you think you're an introvert? Yeah. You know, and even now when you're thinking, you know, if I have to take off my clothes in the front of friends in the house, I will never do. But if I am naked in the front of the public, I don't care. And it's incredible because it's not me who is there. It's the body who I present. It's a concept I present.

And that kind of twist is like super me doing something for the public, giving them everything. And if I'm at home, I'm too shy. So with the artist as present, is it you who are present or the body of the artist? You know, it's interesting. I think in the artist's presence is evolution of everything.

Artist's presence is when I really mature, that I have body and soul and everything I give there. There was nothing, there was not one molecule of energy that I didn't give. And I also show my vulnerability to the public, and this is something where we connect, that you see a vulnerable, you're a human being. That's very important.

You're not kind of superhero. You're just human. How did you very important. You're not kind of superhero. You're just human. How did you prepare for the artist's present physically? I mean, did you drink a lot of water? Or, I mean, when did you eat? I prepare for artist's present entire year, like astronaut going on the moon or somewhere. I had entire year to change my metabolism,

but only eating in the night and drinking water and sleeping enough that during the day I don't need to move, not go to the bathroom, not eat anything, that the sugar level is stable. It's one year preparation, pure one year. Did you know how to do that or did you ask for help? Oh, I had to ask for the help. I had a nutritionist. I asked for help.

This to do what I'd done is without this preparation would be impossible. I don't want to embarrass the real Marina Abramovich, but you are a very beautiful woman. And it's intriguing to me that you didn't feel beautiful as a teenager. You felt awkward and you had these orthopedic shoes. How do you feel about your physical presence now? Do you feel that you grew into it? Are you at peace with how you look? Okay, can I tell you a little story? Please. All right.

Again, something like, I don't remember, 14, 15 years old. I hate my nose. I had such a big nose on the baby face. And I absolutely want to have Brigitte Bardot nose. The Brigitte Bardot was ideal. I took every photograph of Brigitte D'Arbel, straight, left side, right side, you know, whatever, and I showed to my mother, and every time I asked her

if I could go to do my nose, she would slap my face, and the conversation was ending there. Then I developed a perfect plan. On the Sunday, my mother was visiting some friends, and father was playing chess somewhere. They had this big matrimonial bed with very sharp edges. I put all the photographs of Brigitte Bardot in my pocket. I go to the bedroom, and the idea was to spin around as fast as I can.

I fall on the edge of the bed. I break my nose. I have to go to hospital to fix it. I have Brigitte Bardot photographs already, so I just show to the doctor and everything is perfect. So I went to bedroom, I spin around, I fail and I miss the nose and I cut my chin really badly. I fall on the ground, bleeding, all photographs of Brigitte Bardot on the ground. My mother entered the space. She plus me, slapped me, brought me to hospital to put stitches. End of the story. So I am so happy that this didn't work because my nose on my face really fits perfectly now. So I feel much more confidence.

And it's so strange that I've done so many cover pages right now for the show, you know, for the five cover pages for different magazines. They're coming. I am the woman of the year for the Carpets Bazaar this year, by the way. I think it's coming tomorrow, the cover. Then, you know, when the girls with the 15 and 16 taking cover, I'm 77 in November and I'm the cover of the magazine. Wow. That's a big progress. I'm enjoying every moment of my life right now that's wonderful in a way that Bridget Bardot and the bed story it's your first piece of performance art and then oh yeah I don't know but she aged not that great I'm super happy I didn't do my nose she's too

angry she's too angry yeah she's always been angry do you think anger ages you yes i think that soul have to show on the face you know it's really interesting the old age how actually is beautiful because you have the wisdom and i never wanted to be 30 and 40 i suffered too much i like the real old age the only important healthy old age not sick old age when you're healthy and old age you're enjoying every second because you understand the life is a miracle yes i want to ask you a bit about communism and how you think it has affected your work oh my god lot i you know thinking what i come from i think i'm such a strange mixture of everything but the communism what is important about the communism it was that they really believe that you have to give your private life

and everything you have for the cause cause is more important than anything else so that kind of determination and that the cause you can't doubt and i am really lucky that very early i found my medium which is performance and i never doubted so i never spent energy to look for something else this was it and i just continue and i continue now 55 years and finally performance became mainstream art so if i will just kind of die right now in this studio i hope not I was thinking, what am I going to be remembered for? Number one, that I really put my entire life to create platform for performance art, it's mainstream art. I also put incredible attention into my institute,

you know, the long duration performance art, how to teach them doing it. Because when you do something one hour, two hours, you still don't go to true self. But if you do something one month, two hours, you still don't go to true self. But if you do something one month, two months, 20 hours, you can't pretend, you can't act. It's something else happen. You actually show your true self and you connect with the public. So the public grow and you grow and it's transcendental.

So this is what I'm teaching with the Brahmic method and everything else. And then I also invent something, re-performance, that all pieces of art, not just mine, but historical pieces, can be re-performed and give them new life, which many of my generation is against it because they say, I will never give my art to anybody. But I think it's selfish. I think you should really see how young generation can perform your work.

Like right now in this exhibition, I have very, very difficult pieces to perform, House with Ocean View. There are three women performing it, each of them, the wonderful artists of their own, Keira O'Reilly, the British artist, Amanda Cogan, the Irish artist,

and the Elke Luton, the Belgium artist. They have to be there 12 days with absolutely nothing but water on the platform platform day and night it's not easy pieces to do and for me it would be so emotional to see them doing it because look like that my life and my work living without me and you know it's much better to see when your life and when it's going to happen anyway when you're not so it's really very transformative to see that work is living without you you mentioned that transcendence and the truth of something becoming ever more

potent and available the more time you spend with it and there is this real spiritual bent to your work and i know that you are a practitioner of yoga, you do yoga and you meditate. And I wonder if we could go back to the idea of purpose and life purpose. Do you believe that your life has a purpose? And if you do, have you fulfilled it? Once I went to Amazon to meet a shaman, very old lady. And she looked at me and she said, oh, you don't come from this planet you come from the another galaxy your dna is a galactic and you're here on purpose in this planet and i was so interested okay you know i i believe in everything so i say okay what's my purpose

and she said your purpose is to teach how to transcend and pain to the humans. And then I really think this is not so bad. I'm always about elevating human spirit. That's my really main thing with work. You know, my work, you don't need to read about it. My work, you have to feel it. It's all emotional. You have to feel in your body. You have to feel in your guts.

This is why the reaction in my work is so many people cry all the time. There is something there that it's energy and energy is immaterial. It's not something that you have painting, you put the nail on the wall, you hang the painting and that's there. This is so immaterial. It's time-based. You see it, you experience it, and it's all what you have, nothing else. On that note of being from another planet, I was going to ask you about how you feel now that Yugoslavia no longer exists and that you are stateless in many respects.

But perhaps that fits you perfectly. You know, I always consider planet, you know, as my studio. And I love that kind of nomadic. I think I'm a true nomad, really. The most nomadic you never can see anybody than me. You know, I just, the moment I left Yugoslavia, ex-Yugoslavia, I never stopped actually traveling. You know, I live with aborigines in Central Australia with two tribes one entire year. I have connection with Tibetan community more than 25 years. I went to study shamanism in South America. Everything interests me, but what interests me the most is ancient culture.

They have so much knowledge about body and mind that we don't because we really fucked up us with the technology. We know our technology make us invalids. We don't think about intuition. We don't think about the meanings of the dreams. We don't think about intuition. We don't think about the meanings of the dreams. We don't think about the telepathy. We just don't use any of this. But I do.

Yes. I learn. You started painting your dreams, didn't you, when you were 14? That's how you started painting. And do you still have very vivid dreams? Yes. Do you still paint them? No, I don't.

I don't paint. I just interpret in my dreams. My grandmother helped me a lot in this. We have gone through your first two failures. Yes. Do you still paint them? No, I don't. I don't paint. I just interpret in my dreams. My grandmother helped me a lot in this. We have gone through your first two failures. So the Communist Parade, the chess boards. And now we come to your third failure, which is making Positive Zero. It was a theater piece, wasn't it? So Positive Zero, it was a very ambitious piece.

This was the time in my collaboration with Ulay. And we actually put the first time these two different tribes, the Tibetan, the monks, and the aborigine, the medicine people, medicine men, into actually theater piece. It was more like theater piece, but it was also inspired by tarot cards and so many other kind of esoteric ideas. And I think we never made theater piece before. And so we had the audience, we had the stage,

and I remember the moment we start working and doing, because as we know, we're not rehearsing much. I understood this is the biggest bullshit I just am doing right now in the front of the public. Public is there. I can't stop because, you know, they pay the tickets to see us. And, oh, God, this was hell. I remember we went through this whole thing.

I got sick. I got temperature during the piece already. And I really was physically sick. I knew it was not good. And it was such interesting. You know, I learned so much from that, that actually when you know something and you're really failing in the front of audience and you can't reverse it and can't change it, it really makes you physically sick.

It was a big failure. Did other people think it was a failure? I don't care. This is the thing. You know, I know. You know, this is the very important point. If I don't give 150%, 100% is not enough at all. 150% of everything I do, then for me is failure. Anybody can say whatever they want, I know is not good. This is what is

for me important. But if I give this 150% and i have the worst critic on the planet i am fine because i know that i done my best but when i didn't that's what really makes me think that i really have big failure and have you had any artistic failures since then where that experience has been replicated or does it teach you? I really teach me yeah yeah really teach me because you know also with the performance art is really important that you accept also the unpredictable moment so you're doing performance electricity stop somebody vomit people interrupt the work the earthquake whatever is a part of the work because you give that period of time. This is acceptance that I learned. Tell me about Ulay. You met in the 1970s on your shared birthday.

75, yeah, 1975. What was it like when you met? When I met Ulay, we was both invited to do performance for the Dutch TV. And Dutch TV in those days, the performance art was such a, in 1975, there was only one gallery in the world called the Apple Gallery, who actually was dealing with performance art at that time. And they was making the TV program on this, and I was only one from East Block actually invited.

So when I arrived in the gallery, I met Ulay. And when I met him, we had incredible attraction. He finished his part of his program and I finished mine. And then all the crew, we had a dinner at the restaurant. And I said to them, I would like to everybody to offer the drink because it's my birthday. And he stand up and say, me also, it's my birthday. I said, I don't trust you. Prove it. And what he proved at that time, it was his notebook with calendar with 13 November missing.

It was a shock for me. I opened my calendar, also 13 November is missing because I hate my birthday and he never liked his birthday. So the first thing when we get calendar, at least me, I return always my birthday day off. This was his proof and my proof. We almost immediately fall in love and stay for 12 years

together till we separate on Great Wall of China. I want to come back to that. Why do you hate your birthday? Oh, it's a long story. First of all, my mother was telling me that I'm born 29 of November. 29 of November is the day of Republic of Ex Yugoslavia. This was the day that every good children, when they're born 29 of November, go to Tito. Tito will sit on his lap and he will give them candies and presents. And every time they came this day, I was not invited. And my mother would always say, because you are not good. And because I was never good for her, there was never enough. And I was so always incredibly sad.

Till later on, I find that my birth was never 29. It was always 30. Was she lying to you? She lied to me. And then I just hated my birthday anyway. I'm so sorry. I got over this. Don't worry.

That sounds like a difficult upbringing. Have you forgiven her? Oh, I forgive her only after she died that I find her diaries. And if I read any page of this diary, even one page, my relation to her will be completely different. Because my mother emotionally in so many ways, she was a national hero, by the way, and she suffered so much. And I understood-

She was a resistance hero, wasn't she? She was a member of the Yugoslav Partisans. Yes, she was a Second World War hero. My father too, both heroes. So anyway, my mother, it was such a difficult relationship with my father who left and so on. Anyway, my mother, it was such a difficult relationship with my father who left and so on. And I think that one of the reasons that she never kissed me in my life,

when I asked her why she never kissed me, she said, of course, not to spoil you. So I understood only when I read in the diaries that she really wanted me to make me warrior. She wanted to make me warrior. And actually she succeeded. But I understood this when she died. Then I forgave to her.

Ulay and you had this 12-year romantic and professional collaboration, the likes of which we've rarely seen. Some of the work you produced was astonishing. I'm thinking particularly of that piece where you were holding a bow and he was holding the arrow and it was pointed at your heart. We were both Sagittarius. Yes. Oh, yes, of course. where you were holding a bow and he was holding the arrow and it was pointed at your heart. And we are both Sagittarius. Yeah.

Yes. Oh, yes, of course. And any movement could have killed you. And your work explored that sense of power and gender. And it came to an end on the Great Wall of China. And there is a longer story behind that, which I would love you to tell me. Because that piece of art was eight years in the making, wasn't it at the beginning of those eight years you were still in love and we're supposed to marry it on the Great Wall of China and then in the meantime everything

started falling apart it was really complicated you know falling apart was just pretty much the kind of ordinary reasons you know we become this kind of power couple in art. We start showing in every museum in the world. We start selling out Polaroids. So we was not poor anymore because we live just in the car, which was the happiest period anyway, when we, it was penniless. So I think that all the pressure, he could not deal with that. And anyway, he became a very unfaithful and it was hurting. And the last, actually all happened last three years. I can say that definitely, you know, nine years we was happy. And then the three years on the end of our relationship, it was terrible.

Because he went back to drinking that he didn't drink during our relation. You know, I would go to gym and we would come back from the bar. Didn't really work. This is the failure I never talked about. But we can go back from the bar. It didn't really work. This is the failure I never talked about, but we can go back to that failure. I was so incredibly ashamed to say, even to my best friends, that our relationship don't work.

So I was pretending that everything is fine. That was killing me because, you know, I was thinking working together is so much more powerful, producing two people, one work of art, which we call that self, not female, not male, but that kind of third energy.

And I was thinking this is forever. And I realized that actually work only for a certain period of time and doesn't work anymore. And it didn't work. And I could not admit. And for three years I could not admit. And for three years, I could not admit till really came to this point that the walk of China was breaking point. And then we say we're going to separate and say goodbye.

So it was eight years in the making because it took that long to get permissions from the Chinese government. Before we get to the actual walk, it's interesting to me that fidelity was important to you. There's a slight contradiction there because at the beginning we were talking about your need for freedom, but you've also said to me that rules are important. Through that, instructions.

Instructions, okay. So are rules important because within those rules you can have the freedom? Yes, because you have to, for every performance, have to be strict rules that you can have the freedom yes because you have the for every performance have to be strict rules that you absolutely have to follow if i say to myself i will sit three months in the museum every day i'm going to do that no matter what that is very important the commitment you know otherwise too much freedom it actually doesn't bring any result yes too much freedom is the opposite of liberation yes in many. So is that the same for your romantic relationship? Then, right. There needed to be commitment and rules so that within that you could have freedom and trust. But also in the relationship, we had to trust.

To me, the kind of trust was really important. So his infidelity was very hard for me. You walk from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China, and you can watch this on YouTube, and it is so moving. He's wearing blue, you're wearing red, and you meet in this central point after months and months of walking. How many kilometers was it? 2,500? 2,500 each. Okay. And you meet in the middle, and what happens? I cry and cry and cry. And it was the moment that it's the end. We literally walked towards the end.

And the end of something which was beautiful and difficult and emotional and everything. You know, every relation of true love is always full of pain. And there's no way out. Every separation. It was very hard for me. At that time when we split, I was exactly 40 years old. He was 43.

It was the first time in my life that I stopped having relations with men I love, but I also didn't have my work. This was the worst part. I could not go back to my work because for 12 years we signed work together, and everything we'd done was just one work. So I have to reinvent everything. felt incredibly depressed incredibly lonely and what i done i made a theater piece i made a theater piece called the biography remix the only way is to play my life in the front of audience and share that pain with the audience and there is a moment when i say goodbye to like in that piece

and he's sitting in the audience with his new wife chinese at that time and i'm saying goodbye to him this was the way how i could deal with the pain by staging it in the front of audience and in front of him and that chinese woman his wife was the translator was the translator that he got pregnant and when we met he, what are you going to do? She's pregnant. I said, I don't give a shit what you can do. Whatever, fuck. Let me out of here.

Sorry for the language. You know, I just wanted to go to start my new life. I love swearing. Never apologize for swearing. I go like, what then? You know, what I can do? This podcast, as I told you, was born out of heartbreak.

I think heartbreak is such a specific kind of grief. It's a very difficult thing to go through. And a lot of people listening will potentially be dealing with that. What advice would you give them as someone who has endured the profound depths of heartbreak? How do you get through it? Oh my God, I'm such an expert in heartbreak. Dr. Abramovich advice for you. Agony on to Abr heartbreak. Dr. Abramovich applies for you. Yes, agony on to Abramovich. Dr. Abramovich has. You know, first of all, just cry.

Cry. Cry is such a good healing thing. And, you know, and I had a heartbreak. It was impossible. My friends could not even talk to me about anything except about my problems. I was sick and tired talking to myself about my problems. I was crying in the supermarket. I was crying in the taxis. I was sick and tired talking myself about my problems. I was crying in supermarket. I was crying in the taxis.

I was crying on the street. I just was like so, so, I could not eat. I could not sleep. All of this is only way to do it is have a grief and go through it. And then comes really the moment that everything stops. And you could not even believe that you was in love with that kind of person in the first place, or whoever it is. Yes.

No, honestly, you have to let it go through it. When you look back now, are you grateful for those years of collaboration with Ulay, both professional and personal? We made a great work together. I am happy with every moment. Also the bad moments. As we say, bad moments are important. You know, if you read history of art,

you know that nobody make any work from happiness. My theory, the more fucked up childhood you have, the better artists you get because there's so much space and ideas to work with. The happiness is not productive. Happiness is a state that you don't want to change. You just be happy. It's wonderful.

Nobody is against happiness. But when really difficult time comes, this is when you really change. This is when you really grow. This is where you really learn. Are you happy now? Right now, I'm really worried. Actually, I'm happy. Yes.

You're worried about being happy. I have to say, first of all, I went through the really dead experience just in March. And, you know, getting life out of this and being sitting here in front of you and having this huge show that I have to run to install, by the way. I have to work soon. It's the way. I have to work soon.

It's just incredible. I'm so grateful. 255 years never having a woman in this space. It's a huge responsibility. And I really like to do my best. And I'm making this wonderful tea party only for women. I read about this. And, you know, you're invited.

Please come. Please can I come? And absolutely. We're going to have some Please come. Please can I come? And absolutely. We're going to have some men serving the tea, I think. Excellent. You know, I want to have, you know, transgender women. I want to have, you know, the women in science, in technology, artists, young musicians. Just really nice group of women.

Because Monday, when I'm doing it, the museum is closed. So I can have tea party and I can show the show to them and just you know spend some good time and celebrate that this space actually should be just the beginning of the great woman artists who should be there in the first place. A wonderful note to end on and it brings me to my final question which is about gender a lot of what we've been talking about is to do with the body and also to do with transcendence. And we mentioned your collaboration with Ulay and the fact that you were this third state, almost this third energy. How do you feel about being a woman? What does

that mean to you, if anything? You know, that's so complicated in my case, because in so many ways, I said that I'm not feminist because I have such a strong mother. You know, I was rebelling her all the time. Not the man, but the mother. But it's a very different period I come from. I say I always believe that art doesn't have gender. It doesn't matter who is making it.

It's just two categories, good art, bad art. That's it. But I feel very much female as a woman. And to me, I always feel that we have this incredible power because we can conceive life in our bodies. It doesn't matter if we do it or not, but just that incredible power that we have. And we give this power of voluntary to the men.

I don't know from the centuries. I have no idea why, but definitely we are the ones who have the power. We always did. We only have to realize and start really being conscious of that. Marina Abramovich, I feel not only honored that you have come on my podcast in person, but I feel honored to live in a time when you are creating art and teaching us all what it is to be human. Thank you so, so much on behalf of me,

but also on behalf of everyone whose souls you have touched. You are an amazing person and I have loved this conversation. Thank you. It was a pleasure talking to you. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe.

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