"The second Winter Guest of 2021 is performance artist Marina Abramović (1946). Marina Abramović  had a difficult childhood in Serbia. Her mother's home regime was aggressive and stifling, and her parents had a bad marriage.

In 1965 she entered the art school in Belgrade. From the mid-seventies she made a name for herself with her fierce and shocking performances. Self-harm and exhaustion are common in her work, sometimes with fights breaking out or the artist being injured by the audience.

She worked with the German artist Ulay for over ten years. Enduring prolonged pain was an important part of their job. Her most famous work took place during the retrospective exhibition The Artist is Present  in New York in 2010.

For three months, the artist sat in silence on a chair in the museum. Visitors could sit on a chair opposite Abramović and look her straight in the eye for as long as they wanted.

On the opening day, Ulay joined Abramović, which resulted in an emotional moment followed by applause. With more than 850,000 visitors, it was one of the most successful exhibitions in the history of the museum.

Her latest work, the opera Seven Deaths of Maria Callas  – about the opera diva with whom Abramović has been obsessed for sixty years – will play in Berlin in the spring of 2022.

Janine Abbring speaks to Marina Abramović at her home in Malden Bridge, New York."

https://www.vpro.nl/programmas/wintergasten/gasten/marina-abramovic.html (in Dutch)