Marina Abramović on Talk Art
Image from zenmasterdod on Flickr
These are my own imperfect notes taken from an interview with Marina Abramović. She’s talking to Russell Tovey and Robert Diament on their podcast, ‘Talk Art’.
4.00 The artist's responsibility to comment on politics.
Ukraine and Israil Palestine
Crystal wall of Crying (2021)
11.00 Daily Practices
I'm so much against having things you have to do every day, I always think the feeling is so important, what the body tells you to do. Because you know that the body wisdom is the oldest wisdom of them all. I hate any routine... it's so important to live by intuition, which feeling is today to do?
13.00 The creative process
I hate studio, studio is a trap... the ideas have to come from life, then you go to the studio to realise them. But they have to come as a surprise. Ideas appear out of nowhere.
Are you always open to ideas? No first you work like hell and you are so tired, then you go to sleep and you wake up and the idea is there. The idea comes when your body physically is exhausted.
First you have to do everything, then let it go. Let everything go.
I learnt you don't need anything. With 'The Artist is Present' I had a table and two chairs, then I realised I don't need a fucking table.
16.00 Panic
Do you panic? In the beginning I panic for everything and if I don't panic I panic why I'm not panicking! But the moment you are there in front of the public this disappears.
And it's so important not to prepare. The biggest talk I did was to 6000 people and you just stand there and you feel them and you have to just trust something will come through you.
Everywhere the public stands is the holy ground.
18.00 Too much energy
What do you do with all the energy at the end of a performance? This is where I learn from the Buddhists, shamans etc. How to turn this energy around so it doesn't destroy you. One thing to do, you wake up and you are full of energy, then you spend it all and get exhausted. But what if you wake up with load of energy and you switch off your phone, put the computer away, and find a nice place in the corner of the room, maybe looking out the window, and you just sit on the chair and do absolutely nothing. That energy instead of spending it it goes inside of you and it's totally nourishing you and you feel incredibly charged and aware.
20.00 The monk in the cave
He'd been meditating in a cave for 10 years and I was sitting with him, he felt like a fireplace, I could really feel it. His wellbeing.
23.00 Discipline
You absolutely have to have discipline and motivation. In The Artist is Present I had to sit on this chair for hours each day and it was a chair with no arms, it was incredibly painful. It was important to to move, not even to blink. So the pain gets so high I think Im going to faint. But when you get to your limit the pain disappears. At that point I discover how much space there is in my body, I can move without moving, there's space between my kidneys, between the liver and the heart. There's plenty of space and I can move my whole body in those spaces without moving. But the only way to discover that is through hell.
26.00 House with Ocean View
This piece is 12 days, no food, just water from the tap, you pee in front of the public, you sleep on a wooden bench. (performed by her student in the RA show) The last day three monks come, they understand what she's doing, they just sit with her. People sit there for ages, they don't know why they are there, nothing is happening but they are crying, you just sit there being present, you get drawn into that presence.
30.00 I believe you are born an artist.
33.00 Long durational art.
It's easy to do something short but when it is long you drop all the faces on earth into real self, into naked self, you become vulnerable but the public is vulnerable too.
36.00 Rhythm 0.
Early work where she's naked in a room with 72 objects, flowers, feathers, tools and a loaded gun. People could do anything to her. 42 years later she does 'the artist is present' where you can do nothing to her, not touch, not talk, only sit opposite and look.
42.00 Transcendence.
After 'The Artist is Present' I knew that I wanted yo open my institute and to teach the power of long durational art. It's not just me and the artist who need to learn how to do that, the public have to learn to look long durational. It's not easy to look at something where nothing is happening, but nothing happening is the essence of everything. You get bored immediately if you don't understand the idea of presence and here and now. To go through the boredom is the key of everything. John Cage talks about this...
44.00 Boredom.
Do you have to work with boredom? Not now, but when I was young. Not so much that I had boredom but I was afraid that the public would be bored. You do too much, but in the end it's about reduction, you take everything away, till there is nothing there, when nothing is there you reach the point.
45.00 Simplicity.
How do you get to essence of truth or simplicity? I start with chaos. I start with millions of ideas, then reduction, reduction, reduction. Mind is not simple. Mind is like baroque.
48.00 Books under Francis Bacon's bed.
Every artist has to have a spiritual element. But you might not see it.
I've been asked to give a talk at a Buddhist Monastery and they've asked me to talk on three themes and to leave a 10min meditation between them.
51.00 Imperfection
To see how imperfect you are, this is so healthy. There are three Marinas, the heroic one, the spiritual one and the bullshit one. But the three are living so nicely in myself because I am not fighting them. It's taken a long time because I was so afraid to show the bullshit one, she's lazy, watches shitty movies, so trashy. Whenever I do something very strong, a demanding performance, then after she comes. Now we have bullshit time. I would have been ashamed, but not now.
58.00 What art work would you like to have?
Van Gogh’s Night Sky, the last painting he paints before he kills himself. Because if you look at this night sky he really understood that molecule of energy. His paintings are energy molecules and if you look really deeply you can be affected.
The Marina Abramović Institution
Cleaning the House - Workshops
