Since the beginning of her career in Belgrade during the early 1970s, Marina Abramovic has pioneered performance as a visual art form, creating some of the most important early works. The body has always been both her subject and medium. Exploring her physical and mental limits in works that ritualize the simple actions of everyday life, she has withstood pain, exhaustion, and danger in her quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. From 1975 to 1988, Abramovic and the German artist Ulay performed together, dealing with relations of duality. Abramovic returned to solo performances in 1989.
She has presented her work at major institutions in the Unites States and Europe, including the Stedelijk Van Abbemusem, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Neue National Galerie, and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. She has also participated in many large-scale international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale and Documenta Kassel. Recent performances include "The House with the Ocean View" at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York, "7 Easy Pieces" at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. “The Artist is Present” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and “512 Hours” at the Serpentine Gallery in London.
She was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 1997 Venice Biennale for the video installation and performance “Balkan Baroque.” She has also received the Austrian Commander Cross and she was named an Officer to the Order of Arts and Letters in France. Abramovic founded the Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI), a platform for immaterial and long durational work to create new possibilities for collaboration among thinkers of all fields. The institute inhabited its most complete form to date in 2015 as part of the exhibition “Terra Comunal” at SESC Pompeia in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
