Marina Abramovic, Artist in distribution, Yugoslavia, 1946
Marina Abramovic was born in 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, has lived in Amsterdam and Berlin and is currently living and working in New York City. She attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade from 1965-1970 and did postdiploma studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia, from 1970-1972. Abramovic has exhibited all over the world and a large amount of writing exists on her work. She has taught at various art schools including the Academy of Fine Arts in Novi Sad, the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg and the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1976 and 1988 she collaborated with the German artist Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen), with whom she did various well-known performances.Throughout her career, her performances have involved concrete danger and physical violence, raising ethical questions and - by pushing existing bodily limits - transporting both artist and audience to a different mental state. Physically strenuous tasks have also been a way for the artist to look at the implications of embodied experience and to direct the audience towards a physical and conceptual engagement with her work. Abramovic's pieces are marked by a desire to transform her own fears and emotions into startling images that frequently take on ritual or ceremonial forms and that critique the role that the female body is made to play in Western culture.
