Episode #155: Filmed at her New York office in 2011, Marina Abramović discusses how her relationship to fashion and femininity have evolved over the course of a 40-year career. In the 1970s, Abramović relied upon stark, neutral performance uniforms that were always either "naked or dirty black or dirty white." She reached a turning point in 1988 after the dissolution of her artistic collaboration with Ulay Laysiepen, which culminated in "The Great Wall Walk" (1988). Abramović's subsequent embrace of fashion and femininity parallel her re-emergence as a solo performance artist in the 1990s and 2000s.

A pioneer of performance as a visual art form, Marina Abramović uses her body as both subject and medium in performances that test physical, mental, and emotional limits—often pushing beyond them and even risking her life—in a quest for heightened consciousness, transcendence, and self-transformation. Characterized by repetitive behavior, actions of long duration, and intense public interactions, Abramović's work engages universal themes of life and death as recurring motifs, while drawing on the artist's personal biography and reflecting contemporary events.

Learn more about Marina Abramović at:
http://www.art21.org/artists/marina-abramovic

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Charles Atlas. Camera: Paul Gibson. Sound: Mark Mandler. Editor: Lizzie Donahue & Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: Marina Abramović Archives & Sean Kelly Gallery. Photography Courtesy: ELLE Serbia, Givenchy, Museum of Modern Art, Dusan Reljin, Mario Testino / Art Partner & V Magazine. Special Thanks: Danica Newell & Sidney Russell. Theme Music: Peter Foley