From the moment you are born, you could die. I think as an artist it is important to meditate on that.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the transient nature of life and the importance of reflecting on mortality as an artist.
Marina Abramovic's quote suggests that the awareness of our own mortality can profoundly influence an artist's work. By acknowledging that life is fleeting from the moment we are born, artists can cultivate a deeper connection to their creative expression, drawing on the understanding that each moment is precious and worthy of contemplation. This reflection can lead to a more profound and impactful artistic experience, as it underscores the urgency and significance of their creations.
In practice
During an art exhibition discussing the meaning of life and death.
All the aggressive actions I do to myself I would never dream of doing in my own life - I am not this kind of person. I cry if I cut myself peeling potatoes. I am taking the plane, there is turbulence, I am shaking. In performance, I become, somehow, like not a mortal.
I hate studio. For me, studio is a trap to overproduce and repeat yourself. It is a habit that leads to art pollution.
The function of the artist in a disturbed society is to give awareness of the universe, to ask the right questions, and to elevate the mind.
First of all, to do performance art, you really have to give 100 percent. I only know that I have to give 100 percent and then what happens, happens.
Theatre is fake... The knife is not real, the blood is not real, and the emotions are not real. Performance is just the opposite: the knife is real, the blood is real, and the emotions are real.
I want people to come to me open and vulnerable. When they come to the gallery, they have to leave their watches, their computers, their Blackberrys, iPads, iPhones, because we are so incredibly used to technology, and I wanted to remove that.
The whole excitement for writing anything is quite intense. And for a day or two, you think you've done everything extremely well. The problems start on the third day, and continues for the rest of your life.
I love playing with makeup. Makeup has become a thing where it's an art form. It's not a thing where you use it because you need to feel beautiful or because you don't like the way you look.
Anything that's made by humans is about humans, whether it's about gods or aliens or anything; it's about some sort of expressive nature about us.
The ambition of superior sensibility and superior eloquence disposes the lovers of arts to receive rapture at one time, and communicate it at another; and each labors first to impose upon himself and then to propagate the imposture.
The authour who imitates his predecessors only by furnishing himself with thoughts and elegances out of the same general magazine of literature, can with little more propriety be reproached as a plagiary, than the architect can be censured as a mean copier of Angelo or Wren, because he digs his marble out of the same quarry, squares his stones by the same art, and unites them in columns of the same orders.
And the reason I am writing this on the back of a manila envelope now that they have left the train together is to tell you that when she turned to lift the large, delicate cello onto the overhead rack, I saw him looking up at her and what she was doing the way the eyes of saints are painted when they are looking up at God when he is doing something remarkable, something that identifies him as God.
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