You see, what is my purpose of performance artist is to stage certain difficulties and stage the fear the primordial fear of pain, of dying, all of which we have in our lives, and then stage them in front of audience and go through them and tell the audience, 'I'm your mirror; if I can do this in my life, you can do it in yours.'
Interpretation
Marina Abramovic uses performance art to confront fears and pain, encouraging the audience to face their own challenges.
In this quote, Marina Abramovic expresses her goal as a performance artist: to bring the audience face to face with fundamental human fears such as pain and death. By staging these difficult experiences in a controlled environment, she aims to reflect the audience's struggles and inspire them with the message that if she can confront her own fears, they too can face their challenges in life.
In practice
In a motivational speech addressing overcoming fear.
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 loved working when I worked at commercial art and they told you what to do and how to do it and all you had to do was correct it and they'd say yes or no. The hard thing is when you have to dream up the tasteless things to do on your own.
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
I think by shattering it we can create a new form, a new way to look at what is valuable β how we decide what is valuable.
I am not the kind of director who sits in a chair smoking a cigar talking with a microphone to 10 assistants. I need to move. To touch. To put a painting on a wall. To arrange a set.
She danced the dance of flames and fire, _x000D_ _x000D_ and the dance of swords and spears; _x000D_ _x000D_ she danced the dance of stars and the dance of space, _x000D_ _x000D_ and then she danced the dance of flowers in the wind.
I hate that aesthetic game of the eye and the mind, played by these connoisseurs, these mandarins who "appreciate" beauty. What is beauty, anyway? There's no such thing. I never "appreciate," any more than I "like." I love it or I hate.
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