Marina Abramovic

We always project into the future or reflect in the past, but we are so little in the present.

For me, the most difficult piece is the one I'm about to make.

Your ego can become an obstacle to your work. If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.

But what is art other than revealing human nature?

I believe so much in the power of performance I don't want to convince people. I want them to experience it and come away convinced on their own.

Because we never stop silently loving those who we once loved out loud

The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.

Through performance, I found the possibility of establishing a dialogue with the audience through an exchange of energy, which tended to transform the energy itself. I could not produce a single work without the presence of the audience, because the audience gave me the energy to be able, through a specific action, to assimilate it and return it, to create a genuine field of energy.