ZURICH.- Marina Abramović (b. 1946 Belgrade) is one of the most important contemporary artists. Her career has extended over more than 55 years, and she has made (art) history with her legendary performances. From 25 October 2024 to 16 February 2025, the Kunsthaus Zürich is showing the first major retrospective of her work in Switzerland. It includes pieces from all her creative periods, along with live restagings of some historical performances. The artist will also be creating a new work specially for the Kunsthaus Zürich, which will involve the public directly.

Marina Abramović’s trademark is her ‘long-durational performances’ – extended, energy-sapping appearances in which the artist pushes the limits of her body and mind and invites the audience to share those experiences with her. In her early works, she mainly tested the boundaries of her own physical endurance. These included the now-famous ‘rhythm’ performances, in which Marina Abramović exposed her body to extreme situations and experimented in various ways with the loss of control. More recently, she has focused increasingly on mental transformation, the theme of ‘healing’, and a new self-experience for visitors. The ‘transitory objects’, which Marina Abramović has been creating since the early 1990s, encourage the audience to interact. For her, they are tools in a quest for greater self-knowledge. Mindfulness, deceleration and, through them, an alternative experience of time and the self have been central to her work since long before those concepts went mainstream. She has also developed the ‘Abramović Method’, a system for exploring these issues in greater depth with the audience, creating ways to experience the moment more consciously and bond with the here and now.

WORKS FROM ALL CREATIVE PERIODS, AUDIENCE AS PERFORMERS

The comprehensive retrospective at the Kunsthaus Zürich offers an insight into the multifaceted work of this unique artist. Pieces from all her creative periods are on show, in media ranging from video and photography to sculpture and drawing. There will also be live restagings of iconic performances including ‘Imponderabilia’ (1977) and ‘Luminosity’ (1997). ‘Imponderabilia’ was first performed in Bologna, along with Ulay (1943–2020), Marina Abramović’s partner at the time. The pair stood naked at the entrance to the museum, facing each other, and visitors had to push their way between them. The work was a metaphor for artists’ role as pillars of the museum, and the fact that passing through this doorway grants visitors admission to a new world: the world of art. The experience was and remains ‘imponderable’ on many levels and different for every individual, but it is in any event a powerful encounter. In Zurich, the performance can once again be found at the start of the exhibition, transporting the audience physically and mentally into another space and state. Indeed, the retrospective at the Kunsthaus is more than a conventional exhibition: it is an experience for all the senses, and invites visitors to interact and become directly involved. This focus on the participatory works is what makes the exhibition unique and sets the presentation in Zurich apart from those at previous venues. In the conceptual piece ‘Decompression Chamber’, conceived specially for the Kunsthaus Zürich, Marina Abramović encourages the audience to pause for a moment and ‘de- compress’ – to relax and enter a different state of feeling or being, and thus discover and perceive both themselves and the world in new ways.