Marina Abramović in "History" - Season 6 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

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

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

Solitude is extremely important.

Away from home, away from studio,

away from family, away from friends.

An artist has to understand silence.

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

Silence is like an island

in the middle of turbulent ocean.

My physical endurance and the extreme willpower

I think I got from my mother and my father,

because my mother and my father,

they really believe in the communism,

and they believe in sacrifice for the cause.

Your personal life was nothing.

It's important what you are living for.

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

That's how I was educated.

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

she was having communist party meeting,

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

And then she went to the hospital

and give the birth to me.

I was thinking this is normal.

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

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

Coming from former Yugoslavia,

from the really interesting family background,

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

and being taken care of by my grandmother,

who was completely religious fanatic,

having, you know, grandfather

who was a saint of the orthodox church,

that was a kind of almost unbeatable combination

to grow as an artist.

Full of contradictions.

Performance is a tool how i can express myself.

And I think, in the life of an artist,

it's very important to find the right tool.

And I have to say that I was very lucky

that it came so early to me, so clearly.

Since I remember, I was always drawing everywhere.

I start on the little, you know, papers

and then i went to the walls

and then the parents really understood

that they should give me more papers

and then I started doing the canvases

and then in no time, I was painting.

And with age 12, I had my first exhibition.

I remember that my first period which I was
painting,

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

I had very, very vivid dreams.

Sometimes the dream was more than reality,

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

and dream look like real thing.

So the dreams was always being painted

in a kind of blue and green.

Just these two colors I had.

And later on, I remember being very interested

in truck accidents.

I was crazy about communist big green trucks

and how they're colliding.

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

take photographs, go back, and paint them.

And then I was thinking,

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

like a children car?"

So I will go and buy little toys

and I would put them on the highways

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

And what happened?

This little toys was always being untouched

by the big trucks.

So I started going home and painting these
big trucks

being smashed by these wonderful little innocent

children trucks.

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

and I start paint the sky.

And I was crazy about clouds.

The clouds were coming, the shadows and the
clouds,

and it kind of become a kind of mystical chemical

kind of a dimension.

And I remember so well that moment,

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

lying on the grass field

and looking to the sky.
Just plain blue sky.

And in this plain blue sky,

I saw the 12 ultrasonic airplanes passing
by

and leaving this complete sharp line.

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

then the lines created by ultrasonic planes

dissolve in the air into blue sky again.

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

I remember stand up and I want immediately

to go to the military headquarters

and ask general there if they can borrow me

12 ultrasonic planes to make the drawings
in the sky.

My father was the general.

Because they know my father, they immediately
called him

and say, "Your daughter's completely crazy.

get her out of here."

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

for her to make drawings in the sky?"

So very early, understood that

there is certain things I can't do.

But in the same time, I got a revelation

in this moment of looking to blue sky

that actually I can use everything I want.

I can use the water, the islands,

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

And this was the moment that I decided

that it's completely ridiculous to go to the
studio

and make something that is two-dimensional

when I could have entire world there for me.

And that's when I stopped painting.

So after this huge revelation,

actually what for me was very interesting

is to start working with the sound.

What was interesting me about the sound

is to create sound environments where, you
know,

you have one impression listening to the sound

but visually, completely another impression.

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

on the bridge, of the main bridge in Belgrade,

with the sound of bridge collapsing.

So when you're on the bridge itself,

with every three minutes, the bridge is falling
down

but, visually, it's not.

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

from the city mayor.

So i went to the city mayor house.

Again, happened the same thing,

they absolutely forbid to do this,

because they told me that, actually, from
the vibrations

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

So I could not do it.

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

but it was only for ten minutes the whole
piece,

because the people, inhabitants, were just
running out

thinking that everything's bombed.

So that was kind of big mess.

Somehow dealing with the sound, I come to
the point

when I had my first performance "Rhythm 10,"

which actually used the knives.

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

I have the, you know, tape recorders

and I was doing certain game twice.

When it was my body involved.

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

this incredible energy dialogue was established
with the public.

It was so overwhelming

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

In the beginning, in my early work with performance,

I really embraced repetition.

It was to repeat certain action over and over
again

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

And the performances in the beginning,

quite violent and very tough.

You know, like run into the wall

or breaking the walls,

cutting the stars in the stomach,

lying on the ice, beating yourself

to see how far, physically, you can go

and transcendent, actually, the painful experience

into something else.

Later on, the more and more performance I
develop,

I become more and more interested

in mental state of piece

and then extend the time.

The longer performance gets,

the more transcendental can get

and transformative to the performer doing
it,

but also to public participating.

So this is the actually, the door

of something completely else.

How you can elevate human spirit.

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

Mine, I have no time for anything.

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

I think that art should go longer and longer

as life becomes shorter and shorter.

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

but a good idea can stay.

I am very occupied now about my legacy.

It's very important for me, preservation performance
art

and how they're going to develop

and what is the future of performance art.

Three years ago, for my own birthday,

I purchased a building in Hudson.

It's a very large space.

We can host about 1,500 people.

I was interesting to create situation

which will be really center for preservation

for performance art,

but also to commission the young artists

and very known artists to make long duration

of performance work.

But not just performance I'm doing,

but also the theater, the music, the video,

the dance, the opera.

Just long duration.

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

I wanted to create some kind of situation

where you have the seats,

after maybe three hours you're really tired,

the seat reclining to little bed.

You have a little blanket.

You cover yourself.

You go to sleep.

You wake up, piece is going on.

On the left side is a cold drink

inside the chair arm.

And the other side is hot meal.

A little lamp if you want to write the notes.

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

I've really been thinking so much,

you know, what is the role of an artist?

What is my function on this earth anyway?

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

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

what i have to do as an artist.

I called the first group is artist's body.

And just very simple; is me performing

in the front of audience.

Second is the public body, is to create objects

I call them transitory because they're not
sculptures

and circumstances which the public can actually

perform for themselves and get experience.

And the third, it will be student body.

And this is my function as a teacher,

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

that you really have to unconditionally

transfer the knowledge

to younger generation of artist.

And not only transfer it

but also help them in the development.

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

because they give you sense of time you live
in

because they're young

and they understand differently the world,

and you give them the experience.

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

but you definitely can rehearse your funeral.

With a lawyer, I actually made my testament

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

one with real Marina and two fake Marinas.

And they're going to be buried

in three different places in the world,

which I lived the longest.

Means Belgrade, in ex-Yugoslavia, now Serbia;

Amsterdam, in Holland;

and New York, which I live right now.

They will be simultaneous burying.

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

but really bright clothes, like green or red
and pink

and acid yellow and so on.

And it will be very festive situation.

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

you have to die well too.

An artist should look deep inside themselves

for inspiration.

The deeper they look inside themselves,

the more universal they become.

The artist is universe.

The artist is universe.

The artist is universe.

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

and its educational resources,

please visit us online at: PBS.org/art21

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

The companion book is also available.

To order, visit us online at: shopPBS.org

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