Marina Abramovic: Two Hearts

We present a series of images by Art´s most infamous provocateur

She may be the ‘godmother of performance art, but Marina Abramović is anything but a motherly figure, with her confronting works as controversial as they are conflicting. Her name is now synonymous with pushing one’s physical, mental, and psychological limits, the Serbian-born artist has courted her notoriety with ruthless performances that deal with trauma, sacrifice, death, obsession, free will, and fear, primarily sold to her directly through self-induced suffering, her best-known works leaving her own body scarred. In this extract from our extended feature in AUTHOR, we bring images from her retrospective exhibition, Two Hearts, which continues her dismemberment of society’s ideal of life and death, and the kind of morality that envelopes either state.

Text by MICHAELA WILLIAMS
Pictures courtesy of Marina Abramović, Archives, and Galerie Krinzinger