Marina Abramovic, a provocative Serbian performance artist known for pushing the boundaries of contemporary art, has opened up about the toll her new-infamous performance took on her body and mind—one in which she reportedly experienced multiple orgasms.
“I had to do this for seven hours,” she said in an interview on the Fashion Neurosis podcast. “I think I had more than five orgasms. It was really difficult because the next day I had to do another performance. I was exhausted.”
Abramovic’s 2005 performance was a reimagining of a controversial 1972 performance piece by Vito Acconci, in which he mas***bated beneath a gallery ramp while broadcasting his fantasies through speakers.
Much like Acconci’s at the time, Abramovic’s reinterpretation was subject to mixed reactions by the public.
Serbian performance artist revealed the impact that having multiple orgasms on a museum had on her body
Image credits: Marina Abramović Institute
“Who pays these people? Where do they get their money from? It had better not be taxpayers paying for this,” one viewer said. “Most ‘elite’ art is simply money laundering operations,” another replied.
For Abramovic, on the other hand, choosing to mas***bate for several hours beneath a platform at the Guggenheim museum was the culmination of more than five decades of performative art, with countless pieces testing the limits of both her body and the audience’s boundaries—but none was as demanding as this one.
“I was ready to die,” she said later, reflecting on the physical toll her multiple performances took on her entire being. “I ended with nine orgasms… I was so exhausted!”
Image credits: Fashion Neurosis
Just like Acconci did more than three decades earlier, Abramovic was unseen by the public throughout the whole ordeal, which made her feel isolated and trapped.
“The problem for me with this piece was the absence of public gaze—only the sound,” she said. “But I heard that people had a great time; it was like a big party up there!”
The 79-year-old has built a career on controversial performances that make full use of her body in intimate ways
Image credits: Fashion Neurosis
For instance, in 1974 she participated in Rhythm 0, a performance that had her stand still for six hours while gallery visitors were invited to use any of 72 objects on her body, including knives and a loaded gun.
Around that time, she also swapped roles with a s*x worker in Amsterdam’s red light district in a piece titled Role Exchange.
“It was my first time in Amsterdam and my first time to do a performance there,” she told Freud. “I asked her to go to the gallery and be me, and I sat in the window and became her.”
Image credits: Marina Abramović Institute
The s*x worker’s only instruction for Abramovic was for her to “never go below her price,” as it would, in her words, “ruin her business.” Interestingly, the artist jokingly remembers how she ended up doing that regardless due to being able to attract only two clients that night.
“She said to me that I would starve if I were a prostitute because I don’t have any talent for that role,” she recalled, laughing.
For the Abramovic, her works are an exploration of fear, and the ways in which both viewer and artist can experience it
Despite the immense psychological and physical demands of her work, Abramović’s career has seen widespread acclaim—much to the confusion of the public at large.
In 2010, she performed The Artist Is Present at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where she sat silently across from visitors for 736 hours over nearly three months. More than 1,500 people sat across from her.
“So not really an artist. Just someone with serious mental health issues,” one reader wrote. “I’m sorry but this is vile, it is sensationalist and not art.”
Image credits: Marina Abramović Institute
Whether it’s bullets or orgasms, Marina Abramovic has made a career out of facing and exploring fear, an emotion she says sits at the center of all her performances.
“Anything I do before I start, I have enormous fear,” she said in the interview. “I get cramps in my stomach, I go to the bathroom, I just sit there… but the moment I’m in front of the audience, it disappears. Then I’m just there with them.”
“Fear is incredible. It is an indication that I am here 100 percent… The public feels the fear, they feel the insecurity, they feel everything.”