Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, in association with Qatar Museums Authority, is hosting today a lecture by the acclaimed New York-based performance artist Marina Abramovic.
The event, taking place at 12.15pm at the atrium at VCUQatar, is open to the public. Abramovic will discuss the context of her work in the past, present, and future of performance art with a focus on immaterial and long-durational art forms and their development in The Marina Abramovic Institute, which is currently in its fundraising phase.
Since the beginning of her career in Belgrade during the early 1970s, Abramovic has pioneered performance as a visual art form, creating some of the most important early works. The body has always been both her subject and medium.
Exploring her physical and mental limits in works that ritualise the simple actions of everyday life, she has withstood pain, exhaustion and danger in her quest for emotional and spiritual transformation.
From 1975–88, Abramovic and the German artist Ulay performed together, dealing with relations of duality. Abramovic returned to solo performances in 1989.
She has presented her work at major institutions in the US and Europe. She has also participated in many large-scale international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1976 and 1997).
In 2010, Abramovic had her first major US retrospective and simultaneously performed for over 700 hours in “The Artist is Present” at Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Abramovic was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 1997 Venice Biennale for the video installation and performance “Balkan Baroque.” In 2008 she was decorated with the Austrian Commander Cross for her contribution to Art History.
Abramovic also holds multiple honorary doctorates from institutions around the world.
Ongoing and upcoming projects include the theatre piece “The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic” directed by Robert Wilson, which premiered and toured Europe beginning in 2011, and which will be performed in 2013 at the Luminato Festival in Toronto and at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City.
Her collaboration with the Paris Opera for the restaging of Bolero premiered in May, 2013. Abramovic is also clanning to open the Marina Abramovic Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art in Hudson, New York in 2014.
