To be a performance artist, you have to hate theatre. 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.
Interpretation
Performance art emphasizes raw, genuine emotions over the often artificial nature of traditional theatre.
Marina Abramovic's quote highlights the fundamental difference between theatre and performance art. While theatre often relies on scripted performances with props and rehearsed emotions that can feel detached from reality, performance art seeks to engage the audience with authentic, visceral experiences that convey the true, unfiltered essence of human emotion, often using real-life elements that confront the audience's perceptions and emotions in an immediate way.
In practice
During a discussion on the differences in artistic expression at an art symposium.
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.
To me, bad taste is what entertainment is all about. If someone vomits while watching one of my films, it's like getting a standing ovation. But one must remember that there is such a thing as good bad taste and bad bad taste.
What a beautiful testament to the creative spirit and its true motives, to creative contribution coming from a place of purpose rather than a hunger for profit.
There's so many films from around the world, I emphasize, that are so beautifully photographed, but they don't get the recognition.
I had grown up as an Irish poet in a country where the distance between vision and imagination was not quite as wide as in some other countries.
I think the most interesting question is, why do you act? I act because I have felt in acting some of the most free moments of my life...I think it's also one thing that scares me the most.
The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.
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