Marina Abramović Is Here to Play

In Marina Abramović’s 1977 performance “Breathing In / Breathing Out,” she and her then-partner Ulay knelt face-to-face, mouths pressed together. Only, their nostrils were blocked with cigarette filters. “Basically, we are sucking each other’s air in order to live,” she recalls. The two locked lips for nearly 20 minutes before coming close to collapse.

Abramović built her career by testing the physical and psychological limits of performance. She’s been named a witch, a cannibal, and a Satanist. Yet, beyond the controversy — and because of it — Abramović reigns as one of the most vital voices in contemporary art. And she’s funny. “I tell dirty jokes. I’m politically incorrect. In real life, I’m hilarious, but when it comes to the work, everything is very controlled, strict, and different,” she says over Zoom before getting into her latest installation.

Even at 79, Abramović still knows how to surprise. She’s fresh off the premiere of “Snowy/Windy/Spring on Planet Z,” her first inflatable artwork, at the new Balloon Museum in New York. “I’ve never done anything like this in my life.”

In the historic Tin Building, the performance art pioneer drops visitors into Planet Z, an “abstract, science fiction planet” she dreamt of as a child. The installation is one of 14 installations in the inaugural Daydream show, featured alongside the likes of Thom Kubli, Turner Prize-winner Martin Creed, and Boris Acket.

A winding walking path cuts through a field of blow-up grass, as white paper “snowflakes” whip through the air. Tall, soft blades graze the tops of heads. Through a pair of noise-cancelling headphones provided upon entry, Abramović lists off exoplanets in a droning hum as visitors stroll through the milk-white gallery. The installation embraces as much as it feels distant, as if being cradled by a curious alien presence, arriving in peace. For a few minutes, the outside world falls away.

For decades, her body was the medium. Now she’s asking the audience to share that surrender. “It’s not about me anymore,” she explains. “I performed for 65 years, so now I really think it’s the public’s time.” And it’s not just the Balloon Museum show. Her ongoing Venice show, Transforming Energy, immerses visitors in crystal structures, and she’ll command a 50-performer staging of Balkan Erotic Epic at the Armory this winter. Lest we forget about the five-day workshop she runs out of her institute with a waitlist that runs thousands deep. Because who better to guide you through the woods walking backwards, only a mirror in hand?

On the occasion of “Snowy/Windy/Spring on Planet Z,” Abramović talks through the transformative power of dreams, stepping into new territory, and why now more than ever, play is a lifeline.

What is Planet Z and why are balloons the right medium to bring it to life?

Performance art and balloons share immateriality, and I was really thinking about this connection. Performance is time-based art; you have documentation, but in the end, it’s in the memory of the audience. Balloons are also temporary; you can put air in the balloon, but it can explode, it can lose air. It’s not forever.

I like to do something strange and different, so the title [of "Snowy/ Windy/ Spring on the Planet Z"] is very demanding. So, what the hell is Planet Z? It’s really like a playground. I hope that grownups, not just children, can also have some fun. My work is so serious, so heavy, but a balloon is a playful, childlike thing. Something I’ve seen in my work lately is that I put humor into it. That’s something I’ve never done before.

When was the turning point where you decided to bring humor into the work?

Very recently, my dear. Somehow it has to do with age. You put so much pressure on yourself, so much responsibility. But there comes a point when you can’t control anything anymore. You have to let it go. When you start letting it go, you start having humor. First about yourself, then about life, situations, work.

Just look at how we’re living now, with the crazy leaders who run the countries, with poverty, with the warming. Just altogether, there’s no logic anymore.

You have to really start having the only thing that humanity can: hope. You have to put some magic in everyday life because you never know what’s going to happen. Any day can be the last, so you have to make the best out of it, and humor is important.
Coming from Yugoslavia, the heaviest jokes always come from the most difficult moments of human life. You need to have a way to make all this pressure into laughter. Playfulness is more important than ever before.

How does this installation connect with themes you’ve explored in previous works?

One of my most minimal yet important performances was “Breathing In/Breathing Out” with Ulay. We inserted tiny microphones inside our throats…through [them], the public could hear how we, after a while, struggled for the air. The sound was enough for the public to confront our struggle.

When you’re born, the first thing you do when you’re born is breathe in. And the last thing you do before you die is breathe out. It’s funny talking about balloons; you have to breathe into them to inflate them. So breathing, in so many ways, is connected to this project.

The Balloon Museum piece is really for the public, young or old, to actually have some joy, too. For me, it’s a huge experiment. Because it’s new, you can fail. But if you repeat yourself, you’ll always know the result and it becomes so boring. I like to be in territory I’ve never been in. And balloons are definitely that territory.

Did you ever think you would be here?

Never. Oh my god. When I was young, definitely not. The older I get, the more playful I get, really.

A lot of your early career work focused on the idea of dreams, and your turn to performance was born from a revelation looking at the sky. How is Planet Z a return to that idea of dream?

When I started as a painter, it was very simple: you go to bed, dream, wake up, go to the studio, paint the dream. Now, I’m thinking about how important it is to revisit your past and learn from moments of complete joy in your dreams. In ancient times, people always learned from them, but these days people don’t even dream anymore; they’re on some pills because they can’t sleep, or the television is on, or they’re stressed. But dreams are so important.

Are you in tune with your dreams now?

I have dreams that repeat or reflect the day. They are not important. I very rarely have dreams that predict the future. Those are the important ones. Everybody has them, but people dismiss them, or they don’t pay attention. I pay attention to my dreams.

As you pass performance onto the public, how do you think we should use it to reckon with the world as it is now?

Something is going wrong with time. It’s like the entire earth is speeding up and we have less time than ever before. It has a lot to do with social media. I don’t like this whole thing because technology was invented so humans have more time, but it’s so incredibly addictive, and, actually, time is being taken away from us. We live with the telephone like an extension of our body. That’s why we can’t concentrate on who we are, where we come from, what we need, or what our energy is.

There are all these feelings, and you want to fill the day with new things. You never actually have time to do absolutely nothing. I think that we are afraid to do nothing because we don’t know what to do with ourselves. But doing nothing is the real beginning of something.