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[ Marina Abramović ] An artist's relation to solitude.

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An artist must make time for the long period
of solitude.

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Solitude is extremely important.

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Away from home, away from studio,

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away from family, away from friends.

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An artist has to understand silence.

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An artist has to create a space for silence
to enter his work.

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Silence is like an island

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in the middle of turbulent ocean.

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My physical endurance and the extreme willpower

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I think I got from my mother and my father,

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because my mother and my father,

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they really believe in the communism,

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and they believe in sacrifice for the cause.

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Your personal life was nothing.

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It's important what you are living for.

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It's just, like, very, very stoic and very
dedicated.

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That's how I was educated.

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My mother, when her water broke when she was
giving birth to me,

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she was having communist party meeting,

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and she didn't want to stop before she finished
it.

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And then she went to the hospital

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and give the birth to me.

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I was thinking this is normal.

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I was thinking this is how it was supposed
to be.

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I didn't think that everything else can be
different.

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Coming from former Yugoslavia,

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from the really interesting family background,

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which mother and father don't believe in any
kind of religion

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and being taken care of by my grandmother,

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who was completely religious fanatic,

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having, you know, grandfather

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who was a saint of the orthodox church,

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that was a kind of almost unbeatable combination

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to grow as an artist.

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Full of contradictions.

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Performance is a tool how i can express myself.

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And I think, in the life of an artist,

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it's very important to find the right tool.

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And I have to say that I was very lucky

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that it came so early to me, so clearly.

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Since I remember, I was always drawing everywhere.

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I start on the little, you know, papers

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and then i went to the walls

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and then the parents really understood

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that they should give me more papers

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and then I started doing the canvases

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and then in no time, I was painting.

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And with age 12, I had my first exhibition.

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I remember that my first period which I was
painting,

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it was something given to me already; it was
my dreams.

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I had very, very vivid dreams.

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Sometimes the dream was more than reality,

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and I will wake up, and reality will look
like the dream,

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and dream look like real thing.

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So the dreams was always being painted

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in a kind of blue and green.

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Just these two colors I had.

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And later on, I remember being very interested

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in truck accidents.

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I was crazy about communist big green trucks

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and how they're colliding.

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So I would go to the actually scenes of accidents
took place,

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take photographs, go back, and paint them.

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And then I was thinking,

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"Okay, but what if the big truck will be hit
by the little car,

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like a children car?"

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So I will go and buy little toys

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and I would put them on the highways

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and I waited the big truck, you know, smash
them.

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And what happened?

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This little toys was always being untouched

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by the big trucks.

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So I started going home and painting these
big trucks

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being smashed by these wonderful little innocent

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children trucks.

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And then after trucks, I get to new period
altogether,

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and I start paint the sky.

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And I was crazy about clouds.

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The clouds were coming, the shadows and the
clouds,

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and it kind of become a kind of mystical chemical

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kind of a dimension.

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And I remember so well that moment,

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and I think I was in my beginning of my 20s,

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lying on the grass field

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and looking to the sky. 
Just plain blue sky.

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And in this plain blue sky,

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I saw the 12 ultrasonic airplanes passing
by

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and leaving this complete sharp line.

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I see in the front of my eyes, first, blue
sky,

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then the lines created by ultrasonic planes

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dissolve in the air into blue sky again.

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And I think it was, for me, like a spiritual
revelation.

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I remember stand up and I want immediately

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to go to the military headquarters

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and ask general there if they can borrow me

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12 ultrasonic planes to make the drawings
in the sky.

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My father was the general.

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Because they know my father, they immediately
called him

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and say, "Your daughter's completely crazy.

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get her out of here."

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"Do you know how much it costs to fly the
ultrasonic planes

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for her to make drawings in the sky?"

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So very early, understood that

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there is certain things I can't do.

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But in the same time, I got a revelation

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in this moment of looking to blue sky

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that actually I can use everything I want.

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I can use the water, the islands,

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the fire, the earth, the air, and myself.

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And this was the moment that I decided

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that it's completely ridiculous to go to the
studio

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and make something that is two-dimensional

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when I could have entire world there for me.

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And that's when I stopped painting.

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So after this huge revelation,

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actually what for me was very interesting

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is to start working with the sound.

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What was interesting me about the sound

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is to create sound environments where, you
know,

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you have one impression listening to the sound

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but visually, completely another impression.

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So the first idea I had, it was to put the
speakers

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on the bridge, of the main bridge in Belgrade,

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with the sound of bridge collapsing.

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So when you're on the bridge itself,

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with every three minutes, the bridge is falling
down

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but, visually, it's not.

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And of course to do such action, you need
to get permission

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from the city mayor.

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So i went to the city mayor house.

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Again, happened the same thing,

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they absolutely forbid to do this,

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because they told me that, actually, from
the vibrations

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with that kind of sound, the bridge can really
fall down.

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So I could not do it.

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Then I did it with the building where I was
living,

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but it was only for ten minutes the whole
piece,

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because the people, inhabitants, were just
running out

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thinking that everything's bombed.

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So that was kind of big mess.

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Somehow dealing with the sound, I come to
the point

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when I had my first performance "Rhythm 10,"

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which actually used the knives.

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And the "Rhythm 10" is a sound piece, again.

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I have the, you know, tape recorders

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and I was doing certain game twice.

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When it was my body involved.

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And the moment when I involved my body in
the performance,

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this incredible energy dialogue was established
with the public.

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It was so overwhelming

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that I could not ever come back to any other
form of art.

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In the beginning, in my early work with performance,

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I really embraced repetition.

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It was to repeat certain action over and over
again

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to come to the kind of almost charismatic
state of mind.

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And the performances in the beginning,

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quite violent and very tough.

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You know, like run into the wall

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or breaking the walls,

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cutting the stars in the stomach,

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lying on the ice, beating yourself

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to see how far, physically, you can go

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and transcendent, actually, the painful experience

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into something else.

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Later on, the more and more performance I
develop,

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I become more and more interested

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in mental state of piece

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and then extend the time.

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The longer performance gets,

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the more transcendental can get

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and transformative to the performer doing
it,

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but also to public participating.

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So this is the actually, the door

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of something completely else.

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How you can elevate human spirit.

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As you see around us, our life is so short
and so fast.

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Mine, I have no time for anything.

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So the longer I do performance, the better
things get.

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I think that art should go longer and longer

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as life becomes shorter and shorter.

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When you die, you can't take your physical
goods with you,

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but a good idea can stay.

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I am very occupied now about my legacy.

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It's very important for me, preservation performance
art

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and how they're going to develop

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and what is the future of performance art.

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Three years ago, for my own birthday,

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I purchased a building in Hudson.

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It's a very large space.

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We can host about 1,500 people.

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I was interesting to create situation

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which will be really center for preservation

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for performance art,

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but also to commission the young artists

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and very known artists to make long duration

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of performance work.

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But not just performance I'm doing,

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but also the theater, the music, the video,

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the dance, the opera.

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Just long duration.

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I'm developing system that you never leave
the space.

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I wanted to create some kind of situation

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where you have the seats,

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after maybe three hours you're really tired,

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the seat reclining to little bed.

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You have a little blanket.

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You cover yourself.

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You go to sleep.

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You wake up, piece is going on.

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On the left side is a cold drink

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inside the chair arm.

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And the other side is hot meal.

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A little lamp if you want to write the notes.

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So that you're really inside the pce for a
long period of time.

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I've really been thinking so much,

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you know, what is the role of an artist?

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What is my function on this earth anyway?

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I think that being an artist is such a huge
responsibility.

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In my case, I create three groups of the attitudes,

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what i have to do as an artist.

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I called the first group is artist's body.

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And just very simple; is me performing

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in the front of audience.

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Second is the public body, is to create objects

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I call them transitory because they're not
sculptures

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and circumstances which the public can actually

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perform for themselves and get experience.

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And the third, it will be student body.

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And this is my function as a teacher,

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that actually when you come to one point of
your life,

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that you really have to unconditionally

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transfer the knowledge

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to younger generation of artist.

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And not only transfer it

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but also help them in the development.

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It's a really, in a way, some kind of fair
dialogue,

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because they give you sense of time you live
in

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because they're young

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and they understand differently the world,

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and you give them the experience.

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You can't decide when you're going to die,

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but you definitely can rehearse your funeral.

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With a lawyer, I actually made my testament

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which my real wish about my funeral is to
be three coffins,

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one with real Marina and two fake Marinas.

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And they're going to be buried

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in three different places in the world,

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which I lived the longest.

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Means Belgrade, in ex-Yugoslavia, now Serbia;

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Amsterdam, in Holland;

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and New York, which I live right now.

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They will be simultaneous burying.

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In all of these funerals, people will not
wear any black

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but really bright clothes, like green or red
and pink

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and acid yellow and so on.

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And it will be very festive situation.

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And really, idea: you know, you live well;

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you have to die well too.

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An artist should look deep inside themselves

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for inspiration.

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The deeper they look inside themselves,

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the more universal they become.

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The artist is universe.

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The artist is universe.

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The artist is universe.

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[ Announcer ] to learn more about "Art in the
Twenty-First Century"

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and its educational resources,

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please visit us online at: PBS.org/art21

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"Art in the Twenty-First Century" is available on DVD.

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The companion book is also available.

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To order, visit us online at: shopPBS.org

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or call PBS Home Video at: 1-800-PLAY-PBS