MAI Marina Abramovic.

This volume, published in conjunction with the opening of the MAI - Marina Abramovic Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art - the only venue of its kind for the conservation, production and enjoyment of long-duration performances - is not only a celebration of the project, but also a summary of Abramovic's career. Her career stretches from the provocative experiments of the 1970s all the way to the artist's most recent performances: her magnetic New York masterpiece The Artist is Present and her multisensory experience in PAC in Milan, thanks to which she developed the fully-fledged performance method: The Abramovic Method. This is the next step in Abramovic's work: the fact that she will not necessarily have to be present in person, instead replaced by her Method. Enriched by previously unpublished photographic documentation as well as illustrations realised ad hoc by Adrianna Vairo, in close collaboration with Marina Abramovic, this book reveals the inspiration and the aims behind an experience that has become a unique interactive project. Through her work Marina Abramovic (Belgrade, 1946) explores the relationship between performer and public, the limits of the body and the possibilities of the mind. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade from 1965 to 1970, and completed her training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1972. From 1973 to 1975 she taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Novi Sad while at the same time creating her first performances. In 1974 her work was also acclaimed in Italy, where she presented her performance Rhythm 4. In 1976 she left Yugoslavia and settled in Amsterdam. In the 1980s she travelled to Australia as well as to the Great Indian Desert and the Gobi Desert in China. In 1992 she began organising workshops, meetings, solo and group exhibitions across the world, and in 1997 her performance titled Balkan Baroque won first prize at the Venice Biennale; for three days she repeatedly scraped and scrubbed a huge mound of cow bones, while singing folk songs and crying amidst videos that celebrated her belonging to a war-torn country. SELLING POINTS: A fascinating career overview of performance artist Marina Abramovic, published to accompany the opening of the MAI Marina Abramovic Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art in Hudson, New York 200 colour illustrations