Latest news with #Abramović
Graziadaily
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Graziadaily
Marina Abramović: ‘The Secret To Life? Don't Compromise.'
As far as aphorisms go, 'never meet your heroes' tends to hold up. Until it doesn't. Enter Marina Abramović, the godmother of performance art. She's in New York. I'm in London. Zoom, naturally. What does one expect from a woman who once invited strangers in an art gallery to point weapons at her, walked the Great Wall of China to put a symbolic end to her relationship and, decades later, turned a silent stare into the most talked-about installation at the MoMa during her performance of The Artist Is Present? Marina Abramovic during her 2010 performance "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present" at The Museum of Modern Art. ©Getty When the Zoom screen blinks to life, there she is: severe and still, in a crimson Yohji Yamamoto top – not unlike the gown she wore for her MoMa piece. For a moment, silence. Then, abruptly: 'So, ask me questions, then I answer, and then we go,' she declares, voice clipped. So far, so Abramović. 'My life is insane,' she tells me. 'I think the planet is speeding up, and I really try to cope, because it's more work than I ever had in my entire life.' Is she enjoying the madness? 'That's not even a question. It's my duty. I really take work seriously. I never had children, I just wanted to be an artist. And now I have more opportunities than I ever got before. I have no time off until 2028.' Next year, Abramović turns 80. You wouldn't know it. Born in the former communist Yugoslavia (now Serbia) to politically active parents (they were partisans during WWII; she's often described her upbringing as emotionally arid) she's outpaced nearly every one of her peers. 'You relax when you die,' she laughs. 'My generation stopped working at 60 already. Nobody's doing anything. But the idea of pension never crosses my mind. I really think that work is something that we humans should do until the last breath. Yes, your body is getting older but this is something that you have to get used to. And you're going to get old, too, my dear,' she says, suddenly matriarchal. 'At 30, you don't think about dying and, until I turned 70, it never crossed my mind. But turning 80 next year, it's a big deal. This is the last stage in your life.' Is she afraid of the inevitable? 'Of course, who isn't scared to die? Anyone who says they're not is lying. Every time there's turbulence on the plane, I write my testament. But it's something you have to deal with. The more you accept the idea of impermanence, the more enjoyable every day of your life becomes. How can you confront your fear, and how can you make it meaningful?' Speaking to Abramović is like watching centre court at Wimbledon: ideas volley from left to right with impossible agility, bouncing between the philosophical and hilariously blunt, but never deadly serious. The laughs are myriad, as are her nuggets of wisdom. 'There are three Marinas. One who is heroic and likes to go for danger. The second is highly spiritual. The third loves fashion, chocolate and bullshit.' It's this trifecta that helps Abramović to not just stay relevant, but shapeshift with the cultural moment. It's why she can stage a sell-out opera one minute and launch a high concept NFT (a non-fungible token, or digital asset) drop the next, as she has done in partnership with the curated digital art marketplace Taex. Called the MAE Project, the aim is to bring her art to a new generation. 'I've always been interested in how I can apply the limits of my body to new technology, but I'm also interested in how I can connect with the younger audience,' she says. Marina Abramovic during her opera performance "7 Deaths of Maria Callas" wearing Burberry. ©Getty 'Kids are really technological. And the way to get to them is to use the same technology they're using. We've lost control of our life because of how addictive technology is. It was invented to give us more time, but we don't know what to do with it. So it's a war for me to introduce kids to silence and meditation.' Marina's Avatar from The MAE Project ©The MAE Project / Marina Abramović / Taex Does she know she's a social media muse meme, reference point, cultural shorthand? She waives it off. 'I don't have Instagram, I don't look at social media. I can hardly cope with my emails.' Still, when I show her Lorde's new album cover – rumoured on the internet to echo Abramović's infamous MoMa performance – she says, 'Wow. I didn't see that. Nobody showed me. It's pretty identical.' Is she flattered? 'Art is there to be referenced, to be used. Art is for everybody. I'm very democratic about that.' Marina Abramović and Lady Gaga, 2013 ©Gett In this, too, she's defied the stereotype of the tortured artist, wary of the mainstream. She's front row at fashion week, collaborates with Lady Gaga and delivers TED Talks, appears on Bella Freud's Fashion Neurosis podcast and attends the Met Gala. 'In the '70s, artists who loved fashion were said to be shitty, lousy artists. But when I sold my work to Pompidou for the first time, I went to the Yamamoto shop and bought a suit and blouse… I said, 'Yes! Fuck that. I'm an OK artist. If I like fashion, what's the problem?'' Her opera costumes were Burberry, last year she was the face of Massimo Dutti, and the wardrobe for her next project is made by fellow Serbian-born, London-based designer Roksanda Ilinčić. So, what is her secret to dealing with everything life throws her way? 'I don't give a shit. I suffered so much, been put through so much emotional bullshit and lost time to nonsense. I don't do that any more, this comes from wisdom and with age. The secret is simple: really love what you're doing. Don't compromise. Have radical new ideas, good food, lots of humour, and good sex.' The MAE NFT's are minted on the ethereum blockchain via the platform Henrik Lischke is the senior fashion features editor at Grazia. Prior to that, he worked at British Vogue, and was junior fashion editor at The Sunday Times Style.
The Guardian
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Manchester to host world premiere of Marina Abramović's Balkan Erotic Epic
Marina Abramović is an art world superstar well known for challenging visitors' awkwardness at sex and nudity by, for example, asking them to squeeze through a doorway between a naked couple. This year, she will take it to a new level in what she is calling the most ambitious work of her long career – an immersive erotic epic featuring performers re-enacting ancient and unashamedly sexual rituals. Manchester will be the venue for the world premiere of Abramović's Balkan Erotic Epic. It is, Abramović says, a reflection on how 'in our culture today, we label anything erotic as pornography'. There will be a cast of 70, including dancers, musicians and singers, with the production unfolding across 13 scenes. Anyone flustered by the closeup sight of breasts, bottoms, vaginas and penises should probably start drawing up alternative plans for October. The scenes will include Scaring the Gods, a recreation of a centuries-old ritual in which Balkan village women would try to keep the rain away by running to the fields, lifting their skirts up and baring themselves to the heavens. Fertility Rite will re-enact a fevered ritual where naked bodies writhe against the ground in 'a desperate call for fertility'. Massaging the Breast explores a ritual where women do just that, gesticulating over graves to awaken the earth. Abramović has described the work as the fulfilment of a long-term dream. 'Balkan Erotic Epic is the most ambitious work in my career,' she said. 'This gives me a chance to go back to my Slavic roots and culture, look back to ancient rituals and deal with sexuality in relation to the universe and the unanswered questions of our existence. 'Through this project I would like to show poetry, desperation, pain, hope, suffering and reflect our own mortality.' Belgrade-born Abramović, 78, is one of the world's most distinguished artists with a career spanning five decades. She is seen as a boundary pushing pioneer of performance who has regularly used her own body to test the limits of physical and mental endurance, often having to be rescued from peril by audience members. She has explored Balkan erotic rituals in film before, but the project premiering in Manchester is a new, much more ambitious work. In an interview last year, Abramović acknowledged that British people have a peculiar sensibility about certain things. 'You're so puritan about everything, about nudity, about sexual organs,' she said. She revels in challenging that. At her blockbuster retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2023 she re-staged a work called Imponderabilia featuring a naked couple in a doorway it would have been rude for visitors not to squeeze through. The question for many was whether to face the naked man or the naked woman. Some went through, apologising. Others were nonchalant, as if it was something they did all the time. Balkan Erotic Epic is produced by Factory International and will be staged at Aviva Studios. The artistic director and chief executive, John McGrath, said it was an honour, describing Abramović as 'one of the most influential artists of our time'. He added: 'This new performance work offers an unmissable opportunity for audiences to experience the next chapter of her creative life – bold, immersive and on a scale that's totally unprecedented.' Audiences will be invited to navigate the performance as they wish with the possibility of 'pop-up encounters' of 'intimate performances, feverish dances and haunting songs'. It is based on folklore and ancestral traditions from regions taking in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Montenegro as well as Roma and Traveller cultures. The idea is that 'erotic' is not something that should be seen as taboo, but more as 'a vital spiritual and life force'. After Manchester, the production will be seen in Barcelona, Berlin, New York and Hong Kong. Balkan Erotic Epic is at Aviva Studios 9-19 October. Tickets currently on sale for Factory International members and will be available for the general public on 29 May
The Guardian
23-02-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
I am a tweakment holdout. When will wrinkles, bad teeth and big pores be back in fashion?
Totally neutral question, no right or wrong answer: how do you feel about salmon sperm? It's not a Nordic culinary microtrend or a sex thing, but a beauty treatment, in which 'Polydeoxyribonucleotides (PDRN) derived from purified fragments of DNA extracted from yes, 'salmon sperm'' are injected into your face. It does seem to work: proper research has found PDRN has wound-repairing properties in hard-to-treat contexts such as diabetic ulcers and deep burns. Good news (unless you're a male salmon). But what is it doing in healthy faces? I learned about salmon sperm in a Sunday Times article on the 'skincare secrets' of '26 tastemakers', which I read, increasingly aghast. It was a litany of lasers, microneedling, injectables and proprietary treatments with silly names that left me shouting crossly at my laptop: 'But what does it do?' The only treatment I related to at all was Marina Abramović recounting how a friend of her mother's put hot mashed potato on her face to temporarily erase wrinkles; Abramović herself uses 'thermage radiofrequency'. No wonder a salmon sperm practitioner says it's 'an exciting time in the aesthetic industry.' Some contributors were celebs, regularly running the unforgiving gauntlet of high-definition television, and the rest were at least very interested, if not professionally involved, in beauty, so they probably aren't typical. And there's a certain honesty to it, at least. No one is making out their dewy glow is 'just good genes' and 'loads of water'. But I also think this newfound willingness to talk about 'tweakments' (a jaunty portmanteau that makes me queasy) is a product of them being absolutely everywhere. Because they are everywhere, for everyone. According to researchers at University College London, the UK injectables market will be worth £11.7bn by next year, with Botox and fillers available anywhere from Harley Street to high-street hairdressers. Writing in Grazia last week, the Guardian beauty columnist Sali Hughes described how 'women in teaching, policing and the civil service' ask her advice on where to get 'good injections'. In the US, Botox use by 20- to 29-year-olds has increased 28% since 2010, with gen Z buying into 'prejuvenation' (another awful portmanteau), fuelled by the poreless perfection offered by filters, staring at themselves on pandemic screens and social media skinfluencers (argh). I shouldn't be surprised – actual children are buying expensive anti-ageing potions and fretting about their nonexistent crow's feet now. But still, this dramatic normalisation of invasive beauty procedures is unnerving. For one thing, tweakments are so expensive! It's none of my business how people spend their money – my disposable income is dedicated to becoming the Joe Exotic of decorative poultry – but will we end up with an attractiveness inequality gap? Or will the democratisation of HD face mean almost everyone will be smoothly immobile soon? I suspect there will always be better and worse tweakments: that UCL research also points out how alarmingly unregulated the industry is. It's also uncomfortable feeling so out of step. My only foray into tweakment territory is getting my brows, lost to alopecia, tattooed back on (which demonstrates how central frowning is to my character, so Botox is out). It's not that I'm smugly delighted with my 50-year-old face: the baleful crone in my new passport photo appears, inexplicably, to have a single black eye (actually just a dark circle), adding to the 'pensioner arrested after brawl outside bookies' vibe. It would be nice to feel better about my neck, but not nice enough to actually do anything painful and expensive about it. I suppose we tweakment holdouts will have to wait, and hope, for the tide to turn. As Ozempic and shiny veneers may make thinness and Hollywood teeth look boring and basic, perhaps perfect faces will fall from fashion? I mention the veneers, because when I was watching the Bridget Jones movie, I become fascinated by Chiwetel Ejiofor's teeth. They're absolutely lovely, yes, but sort of … normal? One lower one peeps out from slightly behind the others. It only added to his charm. Hugh Grant's 64-year-old face looked charismatically crumpled too. Maybe when everyone has been homogenised to a glazed sheen of perfection, sagging, bumps, gaping pores and rough patches will be the height of desirability. At that point, I'll be ready for my closeup. Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
