Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic is a performance artist who was born on November 30, 1946. Abramovic believes she is the "grandmother of performance art". Marina received her education from the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade from 1965-1970. Abramovic then continued her education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, SR Croatia in 1972, where she completed her post-graduate studies. She then taught at the Academy of Fine Arts at Novi Sad. This is where Abramovic started working on her first solo performances as an artist. Troubled times during her childhood did not make Abramovic's performances easy for her to manage. Growing up, Abramovic's father was a commander in the military and mother was a major in the army. This left Abramovic with strict rules to follow, which meant being home by 10 o clock every night until Marina was 29 years old.

Most of Marina Abramovic's famous pieces of work come from her collection of Rhythm. In Abramovic's first performance, Rhythm 10 (1973), she explored elements of ritual and gesture. Marina used twenty knives and two tape recorders to play the Russian game in where you jab knives in between your fingers in a rhythmic way (5-finger fillet). She would use one knife until it stabbed her finger, then would continue on to the next knife. She had cut herself each time, but would record the outcome for each knife. The whole idea for this piece was for Abramovic to consider the state of consciousness of a performer. "Once you enter into the performance state you can push your body to do  things you absolutely could never normally do."

Abramovic continued on with her Rhythm projects, completing Rhythm 5 (1974), Rhythm 2 (1974), and Rhythm 0 (1974). All of Abramovic's performances include something that has to do with the body. Some performances dealing with contact of the body such as pain or discovering a state of consciousness. Some of Abramovic's most recent pieces include Seven Easy Pieces (November 2005). On seven consecutive nights for seven hours, Abramovic recreated the works of five artists first performed in the 60s and 70s. These performances were physically exhausting, requiring a lot of mental concentration. Most recently, the Museum of Modern Art held a major performance recreation of Abramovic's work in March 2010.