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Marina Abramovic Quotes

Powerful Marina Abramovic for Daily Growth

You know, art is very emotional business. But mostly it becomes not emotional, the fabric of commodity. It becomes business. It becomes so many different things. Because we forgot there was emotions involved.

- Marina Abramovic

Art, Very, Mostly, Commodity

So many artists say they're not aware of audience. For me is unbelievable.

- Marina Abramovic

Audience, Aware, Artists, Unbelievable

In real life, you just work for the ordinary self, but in the front of audience you become the superself. That's a completely different thing.

- Marina Abramovic

Work, Audience, Ordinary, Different Thing

When I was 14, I thought I looked terrible. I wore these typical Slavic shoes with metal bottoms so you could always hear me coming and this really ugly princess skirt and blouse with the top button closed. I had a boy haircut, a baby face covered with pimples, and a really big nose.

- Marina Abramovic

Thought, Big, Had, Pimples

The big problem of our modern society is that we feel that we are separated from the nature. But it's just the opposite. We are interrelated and our DNA is the same. And only when human beings understand that, the nature will not be obstacle.

- Marina Abramovic

Big, Feel, Modern Society, Interrelated

When Lady Gaga says I am her inspiration, you reach kids between 12 and 18. Now I am like a brand - jeans, Coca-Cola.

- Marina Abramovic

Reach, Like, Gaga, None

You know, everyone is always talking about plastic surgery, or the technology, what to do. I really think it's important to help yourself with the technology if you want to feel better, but I am absolutely against any kind of monstrous cuts of the body, lifting that is beyond recognition, this kind of stuff.

- Marina Abramovic

Plastic Surgery, Monstrous, Cuts

The mind is crazy thing. To be focused is the most difficult thing.

- Marina Abramovic

Mind, Focused, Most, Most Difficult Thing

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

- Marina Abramovic

Work, Death, Greatness, Start Believing

We are actually living in a million parallel realities every single minute.

- Marina Abramovic

Single, Living, Actually, Parallel

If you're a baker, making bread, you're a baker. If you make the best bread in the world, you're not an artist, but if you bake the bread in the gallery, you're an artist. So the context makes the difference.

- Marina Abramovic

Bread, Artist, Making, Bake

I really don't like art where you need to know so much theory to understand. If the theory is removed, it doesn't do anything. That means that this work is an illustration of theory, and I don't believe in the power of the work itself.

- Marina Abramovic

Art, Like, Means, Illustration

You know, James Franco is one of the most interesting figures because he has no rules. He breaks all the borders.

- Marina Abramovic

Breaks, Borders, Figures, None

I was friends with Susan Sontag the last four years of her life. She had this amazing charisma and so much energy, but she had a sad little funeral in Montparnasse in Paris. It was rainy. It was all wrong. And I was thinking, 'God, she loved life so much.'

- Marina Abramovic

Thinking, Years, Had, Susan

I am obsessive always, even as a child. On one side is this strict orthodox religion, on the other is communism, and I am this little girl pulled between the two. It makes me who I am. It turns me into the kind of person that Freud would have a field day with, for sure.

- Marina Abramovic

Two, Other, Little Girl, Freud

I am not a therapist. I am not a spiritual leader. These elements are in the art: it is therapeutic, spiritual, social and political - everything. It has many layers. But art has to have many layers. If it doesn't, then forget it.

- Marina Abramovic

Art, Leader, Social, Therapeutic

I used to have a recurring dream where I was at a party in a country house, surrounded by the same people each evening. Everyone would be singing and dancing and after a while I came to know the people; though, of course, they never really existed.

- Marina Abramovic

Dancing, Country, Surrounded, Recurring

I'm interested in utopian communities of the past. Many of them didn't survive and I'm examining closely the reasons they failed.

- Marina Abramovic

Survive, Closely, Reasons, Utopian

I had a very difficult relationship with my mother. She used to wake me up in the middle of the night if I wasn't sleeping straight and was messing up the sheets. Now when I stay in hotels I sleep so straight they don't even think I've used the bed.

- Marina Abramovic

Bed, Very, Messing, Sheets

I really think there's no difference between an art piece made by a man and one made by a woman. Is it a good art piece or a bad art piece? Of course, if you're female, you're maybe dealing with different issues.

- Marina Abramovic

Art, Woman, Think, Good Art

I am very clear that I am not a feminist. It puts you into a category and I don't like that.

- Marina Abramovic

I Am, Very, Puts, Category

Every party is the same, too many people, too little food, and you have to wait around. I'm extremely bored with parties.

- Marina Abramovic

People, Wait, Many, Too Many People

I hate kitchens. I don't understand these enormous American kitchens that take up half the living room and then they just order pizza.

- Marina Abramovic

Living, Understand, Half, Kitchens

If you see a Renaissance body, this is completely ugly in this time. Everybody has to be skinny. But the Renaissance body with incredible flow of the meat everywhere, it was beauty.

- Marina Abramovic

Beauty, Ugly, Everybody, Flow

My grandmother, when she looked at American movies, she said, 'They're all the same. In the first scene somebody shoots somebody and then everybody makes phone calls.'

- Marina Abramovic

Phone Calls, Everybody, Shoots

I think 21st century should be art without objects.

- Marina Abramovic

Art, Think, Century, 21st Century

My mother and father had a terrible marriage. They celebrated their wedding anniversary one year with their friends. Why did they celebrate? Maybe because they had lasted so many years without killing each other.

- Marina Abramovic

Other, Mother And Father, Celebrated

Woody Allen has a wonderful line: 'Today I'm a star. What will I be tomorrow? A black hole?' That's very important to know - that you have the moment, then you lose the moment. You have to see your chances, you have to take them, and you also have to see when you don't have chances to take.

- Marina Abramovic

Line, Very, Allen, Woody

To control the breathing is to control the mind. With different patterns of breathing, you can fall in love, you can hate someone, you can feel the whole spectrum of feelings just by changing your breathing.

- Marina Abramovic

Love, Mind, Breathing, Feelings

From the very early stage when I started doing performance art in the '70s, the general attitude - not just me, but also my colleagues - was that there should not be any documentation, that the performance itself is artwork and there should be no documentation.

- Marina Abramovic

Art, Doing, Very, Documentation

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