The definitive guide to the life and work of Marina Abramovic, the world's most famous performance artist.

Combining brand-new interviews, never-before-seen images and fascinating ephemera, this book is a testament to the extraordinary life and work of one of our most courageous and groundbreaking artists, and is published to coincide with the opening of Abramovic's Royal Academy exhibition - the first major show by a female artist in the Academy's 255-year history.

Agreeing to answer any question that was posed, Abramovic embarked on 17 months of candid interviews conducted by her friend and confidante, Katya Tylevich. The result is a monolithic retrospective that takes us from the humble beginnings of a shy child sitting at the back of the class, to fearless pioneer, conquering and subverting the art world with boundary-pushing performances, and concluding with her most profound personal experience to date.

Over 600 images from Abramovic's personal archives set these captivating memories alight, creating a fascinating, visual landscape and demonstrating the inextricably intertwined nature of her life and work.

A breathtakingly intimate journey, we are led across deserts, oceans and cities to explore extreme highs and lows, all the while marvelling at how Abramovic approaches every success and setback with her signature humour and wit. Never shying away from the truth, no stone is left unturned, and Abramovic's fearlessness imbues every page.

Fittingly blurring the lines between artist and art, this book acts as a keystone in the life of one of the most important performance artists in the world.

About the Authors:

Katya Tylevich is an arts and fiction writer. She is author of Gus Van Sant: The Art of Making Movies, Art Oracles, Success Oracles, many book and monograph contributions, essays and interviews, and co-author of My Life as a Work of Art. Notable artist collaborations include The Marina Abramovic Method Cards, the text for Michaël Borremans' The Acrobat, as well as projects with Barry McGee, Todd Hido, and Espen Deitrichson. Katya spent years as contributing editor and writer for publications such as Elephant, Mark, Frame, Domus, and Pin-Up. With her brother Alexei she co-founded Friend & Colleague, a platform for editions, fiction and special projects. She is currently working on a fiction book titled Fear Eats the Soup.
katyatylevich.com

Since the beginning of her career in Belgrade during the early 1970s, Marina Abravimoc has pioneered performance art, creating some of the form's most important early works. Exploring her physical and mental limits, she has withstood pain, exhaustion, and danger in her quest for emotional and spiritual transformation.

Abramovic was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 1997 Venice Biennale. In 2010, Abramovic had her first major U.S. retrospective and simultaneously performed for over 700 hours in "The Artist is Present" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Abramovic founded Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI), a platform for immaterial and long durational work to create new possibilities for collaboration among thinkers of all fields.

Her most recent publication is Walk Through Walls: A Memoir, Published by Crown Archetype on October 25, 2016. Her retrospective The Cleaner opened at Moderna Museet, Stockholm in February 2017 and has toured to seven additional European venues, ending at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Serbia in 2019. In September 2020 the Bayerische Staats Oper presented the world premiere of 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, which will continue to tour to other venues. In 2023 she will present the solo exhibition After Life at the Royal Academy, and become the first female artist in the institution's 250 year history to occupy the entire gallery space with her work.

A unique, boxed set of 30 instruction cards by Marina Abramovic to teach you this legend of performance art’s method for reaching a higher consciousness and confronting life’s challenges.

Using exercises Marina Abramovic has developed for herself to prepare for her incredible performance works, the Method will help you focus, reconnect with the present, and locate your highest creative potential.

About the Author:

Katya Tylevich is an arts and fiction writer. She is author of Marina Abramovic: A Visual Biography, Gus Van Sant: The Art of Making Movies, Art Oracles, Success Oracles, many book and monograph contributions, essays and interviews, and co-author of My Life as a Work of Art. Notable artist collaborations include The Marina Abramovic Method Cards, the text for Michaël Borremans' The Acrobat, as well as projects with Barry McGee, Todd Hido, and Espen Deitrichson. Katya spent years as contributing editor and writer for publications such as Elephant, Mark, Frame, Domus, and Pin-Up. With her brother Alexei she co-founded Friend & Colleague, a platform for editions, fiction and special projects. She is currently working on a fiction book titled Fear Eats the Soup. katyatylevich.com

At once radical, controversial and revered, Marina Abramovic (*1946 in Belgrade, Serbia) is one of the most discussed artists today. Famous for her groundbreaking performance works, she continues to expand the boundaries of art. The publication accompanying her first major retrospective in Europe gives an extensive overview of her work from the earliest years until today: film, photography, paintings and objects, installations and archival material.

Since the early 1970s Marina Abramovic explores the intersection between performing and visual art in her work and, though rarely overtly political, poses questions of power and hierarchy. In addressing fundamental issues of our existence and seeking the core of notions like loss, memory, pain, endurance, and trust, she both provokes and moves us. 

Marina Abramovic (b.1946) is a pivotal figure whose performance-based works have revolutionized visual art and continue to be embraced by the latest generation of artists, critics and art historians

Her iconic endurance works have featured prominently in virtually every comprehensive survey of performance art
With a career that spans more than thirty years, Abramovic continues to produce groundbreaking new work, including the acclaimed seven-day performance Seven Easy Pieces at the Guggenheim in 2005

As the first book in more than a decade to look at her work in its entirety, this monograph will offer a fresh take on an artist whose work is key to understanding the latest developments in contemporary art

Born in Belgrade in 1946, Marina Abramovic´ pioneered the use of performance as a visual art form. The body has always been both her subject and medium. Exploring the physical and mental limits of her being, she has withstood pain, exhaustion, and danger in the quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. Abramovic´ is concerned with creating works that ritualize the simple actions of everyday life, such as lying, sitting, dreaming, and thinking-each in effect the manifestation of a unique mental state. As a vital member of the generation of pioneering performance artists that includes Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, and Chris Burden, Abramovic´ created some of the most historically important early performance pieces and is the only one still making important durational works.

Returning from a series of performances titled Seven Easy Pieces held in November at the New York Guggenheim Museum, Marina Abramovic´ presents her new work, Balkan Erotic Epic. The artist describes it as follows: "Balkan Erotic Epic is based on my research into Balkan Folk Culture and its use of the erotic. Through eroticism, the human tries to make himself equal [to] the gods. In folklore, the woman marrying the sun or the man marrying the moon is to preserve the secret of the creative energy and get in touch through eroticism with indestructible cosmic energies. People believed that in erotic energy there was something superhuman that doesn't come from [them] but from the higher forces. Obscene objects and male and female genitals have a very important function in the fertility and agricultural rites of Balkan peasants. They were used very explicitly for a variety of purposes. Women would show in the rituals openly their vaginas, bottoms, breasts and menstrual blood. Men would show openly in the rituals their bottoms and penises in acts of masturbation and ejaculation."

The monograph, catalogue of the exhibition held at the Bicocca Hangar in Milan, presents six works by the artist, considered by international critics to be one of the outstanding artists of our times: the new Balkan Erotic Epic together with five other video installations, Balkan Baroque (the extraordinary performance/installation presented and awarded the Leone d'Oro at the 1997 Venice Biennale), The Hero, Count on Us, Tesla Urn and Nude with Skeleton.

Introduced with a text by Adelina von Fürstenberg, the book includes essays by Fulvio Salvadori and Steven Henry Madoff, followed by the works, by a conversation on Balkan Erotic Epic between Fredrik Carlström and Marina Abramovic´ and by an interview with the artist by Jeanette Fischer.