A renowned conceptual artist has explained why her latest erotic production might be challenging for some viewers.
Marina Abramović is a legendary figure in performance art, famous for her exploration of body art, endurance art, and the boundaries of physical limits. Her career took off with her first show in Edinburgh in 1973, where she engaged in a daring knife-throwing act between her fingers.
The Serbian artist is also recognized for her provocative performances that delve into the dynamic between performer and audience. In one notable piece, she invited the audience to interact with her body, and in another, she achieved multiple orgasms on stage.
At 78, Abramović has now unveiled her ‘Balkan Erotic Epic’, describing it as her ‘most ambitious work’ to date.
Held last month at Factory International in Manchester, UK, the performance was designed to ‘explore the eroticism, spirituality, and traditions of Abramović’s homeland through 13 visceral scenes.’ The audience was encouraged to ‘choose their own path,’ with ‘pop-up encounters’ that integrated dance, song, and ritual.
The art show featured scenes such as ‘Scaring the Gods’, ‘Fertility Rite’, and ‘Massaging the Breast’, each with its own unique thematic exploration.
A recent Vogue review offered insight into the four-hour spectacle, which featured an impressive cast of 70 performers.
Describing the show, a columnist noted the presence of ‘wails, chants, music, and the sounds of stamping feet’ as the performance delved into themes of nature, trauma, and the cultural rituals surrounding marriage, sex, death, and religion, which were particularly resonant for women.
Sarah Mower recounted how the audience encountered ‘macabre and surreal enactments,’ including women who ‘threw up their skirts, screamed, and revealed their vaginas to the sky,’ and men who performed suggestive movements on the grass.
Abramović has since shared why she believed her show could be challenging for a specific audience.
In an interview, she explained: “It’s really pagan rituals from the fourth century to the 11th century, when Albanian, Bulgarian, Turkish, and Serbian people used vaginas and phalluses for agriculture.
“If there was heavy rain and crops were threatened in the village, women would go out in the fields and scare the gods to stop by showing them their vaginas.”
When discussing why she chose the UK for her performance, Abramović admitted: “I think it’s going to be hell with the British, because they’re not used to nudity.
“In our days now, with our kind of way of looking at the naked body, we see everything as pornography. But I found in this poetry.”
In an earlier conversation with The Guardian, Abramović shared that the performance was an opportunity to reconnect with her Slavic heritage and explore ‘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,” she concluded.