Marina Abramović, artist: ‘Now that I can afford to have bad reviews, I can’t find any’

Along her journey to the origins of her own world — to the rural Yugoslavia she knew as a child — Marina Abramović, 79, has paid homage to the French painter Gustave Courbet: in the fourth scene of Balkan Erotic Epic, several women show their vaginas to the audience.

“This ancient ritual was taught to me by my grandmother and was used to stop torrential rains,” says the Belgrade-born artist and performance pioneer, from a dressing room at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. On Saturday, January 24, she premiered an immersive show that fuses ancestral Balkan myths and folk traditions linked to the fertility of the body and the land. “Today, people confuse eroticism with pornography,” she explains to EL PAÍS via video conference. “This is because we have lost the ability to see nudity in a poetic way.”

Balkan Erotic Epic is the culmination of 25 years of research. “I just managed to make a tiny new form of art [with this performance],” she says. Marko Nikodijević’s music blends electronica with ceremonial chants from the Middle Ages, while Blenard Azizaj’s choreography — such as a violent traditional knife dance — pushes the stage experience to its limits. All of this is helped along with the animations by Spanish artist Sonia Alcón.

“From the very beginning, this project was conceived collectively,” Abramović explains. She leads a group of 70 performers. “My idea was that everyone could participate, including the audience. It’s not enough for them to observe from a distance; I want them to be present.”

As soon as the curtain rises, Danica, Abramović’s strict mother, appears. “My mother was a war hero. She received two medals for heroism. She was a convinced communist, very strict, and she never abandoned her philosophy. She never had the chance to experience desire or pleasure in her life.”

The artist and performer Maria Stamenkovic — who plays Danica on stage — stands on a table and strips completely naked. She then sings a highly provocative and explicit passage, one which invokes rebellion.

“Besides being liberating,” Abramović reflects, “this reunion with my mother has turned out to be much more therapeutic than I imagined. The question I ask is: ‘what are our bodies really for?’ For me, they are spaces of mystery, power and transformation.”

The stage takes the form of a kafana, the traditional tavern known in this part of Europe.

“The kafana is the beating heart of any Balkan town or city,” Abramović explains. “Traditionally, it lies somewhere between a pub, a restaurant, a music venue and a public living room. It’s a place where the big and small moments of life are reflected [on] and celebrated.”

There, countertenor Aleksandar Timotić toasts and weeps with the widow of Josip Broz Tito, the leader of communist Yugoslavia who led the partisan resistance against the Nazis. “We have this fantastic dance between Albanians and Serbs, who are normally historical enemies, which is a very homoerotic moment… it becomes a declaration of love.” And the musicians don’t just accompany the scenes; they “underscore every gesture of the narrative” with their instruments.

The performance lasts about four hours and has no intermission, but the audience can leave the auditorium, relax in the Liceu’s bar and return to their seats whenever they like. The only requirements: being over 18 and handing over your cell phone at the entrance.

“This is not something you can experience through a mobile phone. It demands time and attention from the audience,” Abramović warns. “[The policy of confiscating phones] worked very well in Manchester,” she adds, referring to the premiere of the performance in October 2025 at Factory International.

On tour, Balkan Erotic Epic arrived in Barcelona in a stage adaptation co-produced by the Berliner Festspiele, the Ruhr Triennale and the Park Avenue Armory, among other institutions on both sides of the Atlantic.

Abramović’s return to the Liceu comes three years after the premiere of 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, another hybrid of opera, video and performance art, in which she embodied the ritual sacrifices of Tosca, Desdemona, Carmen and Norma (among others) as a tribute to the legendary soprano.

“Although my presence in Balkan Erotic Epic is much more discreet, I can’t conceive of directing without a certain degree of stage involvement,” she says. “I need to feel that vertigo, to expose myself to others and take risks.” She even signed a contract with Taschen, a luxury art book publisher, to publish the predictable negative reviews that she ultimately didn’t receive in Manchester. “Now that I can afford to have bad reviews, I can’t find any,” she laughs.

In November, Abramović — the architect of the most radical and transgressive avant-garde of recent decades — will turn 80. She’ll celebrate the occasion with a performance of Balkan Erotic Epic in New York City. “The main concern for me is how much time I have left to do whatever I want to do,” she admits. “I’ve always defended performance art as a serious language, with rules and responsibilities, not as something that just anyone can do or imitate.”

Her legacy has been recognized by the Royal Academy of Arts (whose sensational retrospective on Abramović can be seen in Vienna) and the Venice Biennale, which will host her next solo exhibition. “It’s obvious that, at a certain age, you lose some abilities,” she confesses. “But I wouldn’t trade who I am now for who I was at 18 for a second.”

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