The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the vulnerability and courage required to face public judgment and aggression.
Marina Abramovic's quote conveys the intense emotional and physical risks involved in exposing oneself to public scrutiny and decision-making. It highlights how in a confrontational environment, the potential for violence exists when individuals are left to act upon their impulses, yet it also underscores the artist's resilience as she chose to confront the public despite the hostility faced during her performance.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the importance of artistic expression despite societal pressures.
All the aggressive actions I do to myself I would never dream of doing in my own life - I am not this kind of person. I cry if I cut myself peeling potatoes. I am taking the plane, there is turbulence, I am shaking. In performance, I become, somehow, like not a mortal.
I hate studio. For me, studio is a trap to overproduce and repeat yourself. It is a habit that leads to art pollution.
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.
First of all, to do performance art, you really have to give 100 percent. I only know that I have to give 100 percent and then what happens, happens.
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.
I want people to come to me open and vulnerable. When they come to the gallery, they have to leave their watches, their computers, their Blackberrys, iPads, iPhones, because we are so incredibly used to technology, and I wanted to remove that.
I repeat the declaration made a year ago, that 'while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the Acts of Congress.' If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an Executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to perform it.
Please be peaceful. We believe in law and order. We are not advocating violence, I want you to love your enemies... for what we are doing is right, what we are doing is just -- and God is with us.
For those of us in the opposition movement under dictatorships, part of our job is confronting police and spending time in prison. So, a dissident not only needs to learn how to oppose oppression but also how to face the crackdowns and time in prison.
Put yourself out on a limb, sucka, like me! - young Cassius Clay to heavily favored thug Sonny Liston during the weigh in before Cassius wins his first title and changes his name to Muhammad Ali.
I did community theater for a long time and never had an agent. And then I got an agent and I remember that was my introduction to her telling me I wasn't enough as I was. She told me, 'You're going to have to change your hair. No one wants to see a Black woman with dreadlocks on television.' And I believed it.
We speak here of the challenge of the dichotomies of war and peace, violence and non-violence, racism and human dignity, oppression and repression and liberty and human rights, poverty and freedom from want.
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