Marina Abramović (born 1st November 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia) is a renowned performance artist. She began her career in the early 1970s; the body has always been her subject and medium, exploring the boundaries of physical and mental potential.

In 1975, Abramović met Ulay , an artist with whom she shared the same day of birth and similar artistic interests. For the next two decades, they lived and worked together.

Abramovic has carried out a number of pivotal and dangerous performances, including her series of Rhythm performances. In Rhythm 5, she lay down inside a burning star of wood and had to be rescued by spectators. In Rhythm 0, perhaps her most infamous performance, she asked her audience to use various items -- some of them dangerous -- on her however they wished; according to one report,

By the third hour, her clothes had been cut from her body with razor blades, her skin slashed; a loaded gun held to her head finally caused a fight between her tormentors, bringing the proceeding to an unnerving halt.

External links

• Artist's page in Artfacts.Net with actual major exhibitions.
• Guggenheim page on Abramovic, with image from Rhythm 5.
• Secondary source for the report above, quoting RoseLee Goldberg 's Performance Art from Futurism to the Present (1988)