In the final act of purification, Abramović leapt across the flames into the center of the large star. Burning the communist five-pointed star represented a physical and mental purification, while also addressing the political traditions of her past. When finished with each, she threw the clippings into the flames, creating a burst of light each time. Standing outside the star, Abramović cut her nails, toenails, and hair. In this performance, Abramović sought to re-evoke the energy of extreme bodily pain, using a large petroleum-drenched star, which the artist lit on fire at the start of the performance. "Once you enter into the performance state you can push your body to do things you absolutely could never normally do." Rhythm 5, 1974 With this piece, Abramović began to consider the state of consciousness of the performer. She set out to explore the physical and mental limitations of the body – the pain and the sounds of the stabbing the double sounds from the history and the replication.
After cutting herself twenty times, she replayed the tape, listened to the sounds, and tried to repeat the same movements, attempting to replicate the mistakes, merging past and present. Each time she cut herself, she would pick up a new knife from the row of twenty she had set up, and record the operation. Making use of twenty knives and two tape recorders, the artist played the Russian game, in which rhythmic knife jabs are aimed between the splayed fingers of one's hand. In her first performance in Edinburgh in 1973, Abramović explored elements of ritual and gesture. I always say I come from a country that no longer exists." In 2016, Abramović stated that she has had three abortions throughout her life, adding that having children would have been a "disaster for her work." Career Rhythm 10, 1973 "When people ask me where I am from," she says, "I never say Serbia. Ībramović claims she feels "neither like a Serb, nor a Montenegrin", but an ex- Yugoslav. From 1992 to 1996 she also served as a visiting professor at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg and from 1997 to 2004 she was a professor for performance-art at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Braunschweig. In 1976, following her marriage to Neša Paripović (between 19), Abramović went to Amsterdam to perform a piece and then decided to move there permanently.įrom 1990 to 1995, Abramović was a visiting professor at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris and at the Berlin University of the Arts. Then she returned to SR Serbia and, from 1973 to 1975, taught at the Academy of Fine Arts at Novi Sad while launching her first solo performances. She completed her post-graduate studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, SR Croatia in 1972. She was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade from 1965 to 1970. In an interview published in 2013, Abramović said, "My mother and father had a terrible marriage." Describing an incident when her father smashed 12 champagne glasses and left the house, she said, "It was the most horrible moment of my childhood." It's completely insane, but all of my cutting myself, whipping myself, burning myself, almost losing my life in 'The Firestar'-everything was done before 10 in the evening." ll the performances in Yugoslavia I did before 10 o'clock in the evening because I had to be home then. I was not allowed to leave the house after 10 o'clock at night until I was 29 years old. . In an interview published in 1998, Abramović described how her "mother took complete military-style control of me and my brother. When Abramović was a child, her mother beat her for "supposedly showing off". Life in Abramović's parental home under her mother's strict supervision was difficult. Although she did not take art lessons, she took an early interest in art and enjoyed painting as a child. When she was six, her brother was born, and she began living with her parents while also taking piano, French, and English lessons. Her grandmother was deeply religious and Abramović "spent childhood in a church following grandmother's rituals-candles in the morning, the priest coming for different occasions". Ībramović was raised by her grandparents until she was six years old.
After the war, Abramović's parents were awarded Order of the People's Heroes and were given positions in the postwar Yugoslavian government. Both of her Montenegrin-born parents, Danica Rosić and Vojin Abramović were Yugoslav Partisans during World War II. In an interview, Abramović described her family as having been "Red bourgeoisie." Her great-uncle was Varnava, Serbian Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. 8.2 Films by Abramović and collaboratorsĪbramović was born in Belgrade, Serbia, then part of Yugoslavia, on November 30, 1946.8.1 Books by Abramović and collaborators.2.11 The Artist Is Present: March–May 2010.