Marina Abramović, often called the grandmother of performance art, is entering her 80th year with a presence as intense and unflinching as ever. Known for using her body as both medium and method, she has spent decades testing human limits—physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Her work is featured in the sixth Kochi-Muziris Biennale, where she will also deliver a lecture in February, alongside a presentation by Saatchi Yates at the India Art Fair in New Delhi.
Emerging in the 1970s, Abramović challenged audiences with confrontational works. In Rhythm 0 (1974), she stood motionless for six hours while the public could use 72 objects on her, from feathers to a loaded gun, exposing how quickly spectators could participate in violence. In the 1980s, her work with partner Ulay focused on emotional endurance, most famously in The Lovers (1988), a journey across the Great Wall of China that ended their relationship. The 1990s brought history and collective trauma into focus, as in Balkan Baroque (1997), where she scrubbed bloody cow bones while singing folk songs, reflecting on the Yugoslav wars. By the 2010s, extremity evolved into stillness, exemplified by The Artist Is Present (2010) at MoMA, where she sat silently for nearly three months, meeting visitors’ gaze.
Abramović’s practice is deeply informed by cultures beyond Western art. She studied Aboriginal traditions in Australia and Tibetan Buddhist rituals in India, learning endurance, meditation, and repetition. During her time in India, she recorded monks chanting the Lotus Sutra, a practice that influenced Waterfall (2003), a monumental installation now at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. The work layers voices and faces into a cascading, meditative experience. Alongside this, the Marina Abramović Institute presents an archive of her performances, drawings, and films, while she will also deliver a lecture titled The Past, Present, and Future of Performance Art.
In an email interview ahead of her visit, Abramović described India as a profound teacher. She said the country helped her grasp the temporality of life, connected mind and body, and offered lessons in compassion, forgiveness, and the karmic circle of life. Her first trip in 1979 led her straight to Bodh Gaya, where she spent three months immersed in temples, meditation centres, and teachings from Tibetan and Southeast Asian practitioners. These experiences shaped her understanding of art as lived practice rather than abstract theory.
Reflecting on her career, Abramović said the body is where knowledge accumulates, not just the mind. Commenting on the state of performance art, she observed that Western culture is exhausted and that fresh perspectives from other cultures are essential. Performance art, she insists, will continue to evolve—burning and being reborn like a phoenix—but social media platforms like Instagram are not art.
Discussing her participation in the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Abramović praised curator Nikhil Chopra for his sustained commitment to performance art and for creating immersive experiences that demand dedication from both artist and audience.
Asked about the role of art in today’s unstable world, she said art is the oxygen of life, feeding the human spirit while asking the right questions. To young artists, she advises following their hearts, remaining true to themselves, and avoiding overproduction or compromise for the market. Her hope comes from life itself, which she calls a miracle, encouraging full engagement with every day.
Marina Abramović’s lecture will be held on February 10 from 6–8 p.m. at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, with venue and ticket details to be announced on the Biennale website. The session will accommodate around 1,000 attendees.
