![marina abramovic in brazil the space in between 2016 marina abramovic in brazil the space in between 2016](https://news.cinecitta.com/photo.aspx?s=1&w=850&path=%2fpublic%2fnews%2f0070%2f70490%2fmarina.jpg)
- MARINA ABRAMOVIC IN BRAZIL THE SPACE IN BETWEEN 2016 ARCHIVE
- MARINA ABRAMOVIC IN BRAZIL THE SPACE IN BETWEEN 2016 FULL
- MARINA ABRAMOVIC IN BRAZIL THE SPACE IN BETWEEN 2016 PROFESSIONAL
What is the last thing that made you cry? I also like mushed banana or apple sauce, any kind of food like that. There’s a Dutch baby food company called Brinta that makes rice powder, which you mix with milk. Is there a meal you eat on repeat when you’re working? As a child, I was always painting the walls until my parents gave me a studio, which was just a small little room where I could do whatever I wanted.
MARINA ABRAMOVIC IN BRAZIL THE SPACE IN BETWEEN 2016 PROFESSIONAL
When did you first feel comfortable saying you are a professional artist? I think it’s because I come from communism. Here in upstate New York, I have 10,000 square feet where everything is perfectly organized. That was really the worst because I don’t like chaos. We had to have a list because otherwise we didn’t know where anything was anymore. At least 25 different people had our stuff: boxes filled with drawings, ideas, unfinished works, winter clothes, summer clothes, that sort of thing. We had stuff, but we couldn’t keep it all in the little car we had, so we stored things with other people. The most difficult time was in the ’80s, when Ulay and I lived in a car for five years. What is the worst studio you’ve ever had? But a piece always starts with an idea that I don’t like - something I’m afraid of - and going into the unknown. Then, I get obsessed and, finally, I say, “OK, I’m going to do it.” That moment of decision is very important. No, no, no, no.” An idea that gets stuck in my stomach. Not an easy idea but one that makes me go, “Oh my god. When you start a new piece, where do you begin? What’s the first step? She died and now I have maybe 50 of them. But my mother got sentimental in her old age she didn’t like that I was doing performances instead of paintings, so she bought back all my paintings from my relatives. I’m embarrassed to say I signed them all with a very big “Marina,” like Picasso. In terms of dollars, it would have been about $10, maybe $15 - $50 would have been a huge commission.
MARINA ABRAMOVIC IN BRAZIL THE SPACE IN BETWEEN 2016 FULL
They would come and say: “We would like to have sunflowers, an open window and a full moon.” Or another would say: “I would like more tulips with the fish, cut a little onion, cut a little lemon and make the curtain move in the wind.” In 20 minutes, I was done and then I got some money. Since I was always painting, my aunts and relatives and friends of my relatives would order pieces from me. I wanted to be independent from my family, to be able to buy books and go to the cinema and do my own things, but I never had the pocket money. When I lived in Yugoslavia, we had no money. What was the first work of art you sold and for how much? Many artists get their best ideas from their dreams or in a state of complete tranquillity. So, she counts her sleep as working hours.
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Except she’ll say: “I’m going to work.” When she wakes up, she will have had a dream. My old friend Rebecca Horn is a wonderful German artist. How many hours of creative work do you do in a day? Sometimes I put ginger in it, sometimes not.
It’s not easy to do it if you’re not used to it. In some Eastern cultures - like in India, Japan, China and so on - they learn from an early age to go to the bathroom before sunrise. This is why so many people wake up tired. If you don’t go to the bathroom before sunrise, all the toxins rise from your feet to your brain. When the sun rises, everything in you wakes up. When you go to sleep in the evening, all the energy in your body is in a state of rest. Its new slogan? “Don’t come to us we come to you.” But when the project’s budget ballooned out of her control (Koolhaas’s plans alone were estimated to be $31 million, which didn’t include the handling of the theater’s pre-existing asbestos problem) and her fund-raising efforts fell short (a Kickstarter only got her to a little over half a million dollars), Abramović decided to turn it into something that didn’t depend on a physical location.
MARINA ABRAMOVIC IN BRAZIL THE SPACE IN BETWEEN 2016 ARCHIVE
Abramović founded the institute in 2007, originally intending to convert a derelict theater built sometime around the 1930s nearby into a top-of-the-line Rem Koolhaas-designed performance space, archive and education center. No food, no talking and heavy exercise,” says the artist, 75, with a chuckle. The New York-based artist Marina Abramović is sitting in the kitchen of her house just outside of Hudson when she invites me - over FaceTime - to join her in Greece this August for a workshop organized by the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI).