Time is an illusion. Time only exists when we think about the past and the future. Time doesn't exist in the present here and now.
Marina Abramovic
Your ego can become an obstacle to your work. If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.
Unconditional love with someone you've never met is a straightforward feeling that is so overwhelming and fulfilling.
In theater, blood is ketchup; in performance, everything's real.
You know how you feel somebody looking at you, and you turn, and somebody actually is? It's the same at an art gallery. You're looking at one portrait, turn around, and there is a work of art directly behind you. Because it's all energy. Every single thing has energy.
When you have heartbreak, what's important is that you don't go halfway. Go all the way down. Don't take pills that keep you in limbo. Cry out all the feelings. Then your own energy for life will put you up again. You become stronger.
To be a performance artist, you have to hate theatre. Theatre is fake... The knife is not real, the blood is not real, and the emotions are not real. Performance is just the opposite: the knife is real, the blood is real, and the emotions are real.
Why am I not feminist? Maybe because I come from a country where my mother ruled my life. I never felt in any way that I couldn't achieve what I want.
I have this exercise that I propose to everybody: Hug a tree and complain for a minimum 15 minutes. Be yourself, and do something that you really feel deeply.
We always project into the future or reflect in the past, but we are so little in the present.
We are used to cleaning the outside house, but the most important house to clean is yourself - your own house - which we never do.
I don't have tattoos, I have scars!
An artist should not fall in love with another artist.
I was friends with Susan Sontag the last four years of her life. She had this amazing charisma and so much energy, but she had a sad little funeral in Montparnasse in Paris. It was rainy. It was all wrong. And I was thinking, 'God, she loved life so much.'
It's so easy to do things you like. But then, the thing is, when you're afraid of something, face it; go for it. You become a better human being.
Happiness comes from the full understanding of your own being.
Happiness is such a good state, it doesn't need to be creative. You're not creative from happiness, you're just happy. You're creative when you're miserable and depressed. You find the key to transform things. Happiness does not need to transform.
The function of the artist in a disturbed society is to give awareness of the universe, to ask the right questions, and to elevate the mind.
After my performance 'The Artist is Present (2010)' at MoMA in New York, many scientists became interested in why so many people who sat across from me began to cry. I was incredibly moved by this experience also, and was very curious to know what happens in our brains when we spend time not talking, just looking at one another.
When you have a nonverbal conversation with a total stranger, then he can't cover himself with words, he can't create a wall.
All my inspiration comes from life. That's how it never stops, in a way.
I am only interested in the ideas that become obsessive and make me feel uneasy. The ideas that I'm afraid of.
To control the breathing is to control the mind. With different patterns of breathing, you can fall in love, you can hate someone, you can feel the whole spectrum of feelings just by changing your breathing.
Being an artist is not easy - I have always said that to the students I have taught over the years. It's a huge sacrifice.
The hardest thing to do is something that is close to nothing.
To really change the way society thinks, you have to give your entire being to it until there's nothing left.
I am obsessive always, even as a child. On one side is this strict orthodox religion, on the other is communism, and I am this little girl pulled between the two. It makes me who I am. It turns me into the kind of person that Freud would have a field day with, for sure.
Good art is never made in studio. Good art I make in life.
People put so much effort into starting a relationship and so little effort into ending one.
I believe that life is shorter; that is why we have to make experience longer.
The entire aim of my work is to elevate the human spirit. We can put the human spirit down so easily.
When I was 14, I thought I looked terrible. I wore these typical Slavic shoes with metal bottoms so you could always hear me coming and this really ugly princess skirt and blouse with the top button closed. I had a boy haircut, a baby face covered with pimples, and a really big nose.
You can't choreograph death, but you can choreograph your funeral.
If you're a woman, it's almost impossible to establish a relationship. You're too much for everybody. It's too much. The woman always has to play this role of being fragile and dependent. And if you're not, they're fascinated by you, but only for a little while. And then they want to change you and crush you. And then they leave.
When I taught art, I was always asked, 'How do you know you're an artist? What makes you an artist?' And to me, it's like breathing. You don't question if you breathe; you have to breathe. So if you wake up in the morning, and you have to realize an idea, and there's another idea, and another, maybe you are really an artist.
We are actually living in a million parallel realities every single minute.
Today, our attention is less than the television advertisement. We're looking at six or seven problems constantly. We're living in the disturbed societies of cities. I think modern technology is one of the worst things human beings have invented.
I am not a therapist. I am not a spiritual leader. These elements are in the art: it is therapeutic, spiritual, social and political - everything. It has many layers. But art has to have many layers. If it doesn't, then forget it.
Yes, I believe stories are very important to all performances. The life story of the performer shapes their work, and the life stories of the audience alter how they receive the work, what they read into the performer.
I hate studios. A studio is a black hole. I never use a studio to work. It's very artificial to go to a studio to get new ideas. You have to get new ideas from life, not from the studio. Then you go to the studio to realize the idea.
I have always staged my fears as a way to transcend them.
My mother and father were partisan national heroes: I learned sacrifice and discipline from them and that a private life is not as important as the message you want to leave.
Woody Allen has a wonderful line: 'Today I'm a star. What will I be tomorrow? A black hole?' That's very important to know - that you have the moment, then you lose the moment. You have to see your chances, you have to take them, and you also have to see when you don't have chances to take.
I am thrilled Lady Gaga has helped to teach her audience about long durational work and performance art.
I hate studio. For me, studio is a trap to overproduce and repeat yourself. It is a habit that leads to art pollution.
I'm not feminist, by the way. I am just an artist.
If you're a baker, making bread, you're a baker. If you make the best bread in the world, you're not an artist, but if you bake the bread in the gallery, you're an artist. So the context makes the difference.
When people ask me where I am from I never say, 'Serbia.' I always say, 'I come from a country that no longer exists.'
It's very important that young artists push boundaries, because sometimes you have this urge to do something - like the impulsive and dangerous urges I had as a child - and if you don't follow through with it you might miss out on a developmental experience.
I have the greatest respect for Aborigine people, to whom I owe everything. The time I spent with members of the Pijantjatjara and Pintupi tribes in Australia was a transformative experience for me and one that has deeply and indelibly informed my entire life and art.
