The Louis Theroux Podcast: This week, Louis sits down with critically and culturally acclaimed performance artist Marina Abramović. In this dynamic and fascinating interview, the two delve into Marina’s unique oeuvre and life. From her highly controversial ‘Rhymth O’ performance and her high-profile split with fellow performance artist Ulay, to accusations of being a satanist from notorious conspiracist Alex Jones, they leave no stone unturned.
Louis: I recognise I’m maybe a little bit of a philistine in some of my questions, but I think that’s practical.
Marina: You are old-fashioned, my dear.
Louis: Okay. I can live with that.
Marina: Just old-fashioned, but I really want you to get a little more, you know, edgy.
Louis: You’re half artist, half rockstar, half religious guru, I mean, you’ve got this extraordinary level of visibility. Your profile is off the charts, on the cover of lots of magazines. Nevertheless, I don’t think you’ve exploited it financially as much as you could have. You feel free to disagree.
Marina: Pretty nothing because I never make art to create something like an art commodity.
Louis: I was going to say, because Damien Hirst, who’s probably the most famous British artist, is worth maybe 300, I think it’s $350 million.
Marina: Honestly, Damien Hirst is a fantastic artist. He has a capacity to really fight the art market for his own benefit.
Louis: He’s understood the business side of it.
Marina: Chapeau pour Damien Hirst.
Louis: Hats off to Damien Hirst.
The curator of MOMA told Marina Abramović that no one would have time to sit with her during her critically acclaimed ‘Artist is Present’ performance: “Klaus Biesenbach said to me, you are totally ridiculous. This is New York. Nobody has time to sit in this chair.”
Marina: I have to tell you, in the seventies, performance [art] was treated like shit. And there was terrible criticism.
Louis: From who?
Marina: From the public, from the journalists, from everybody. No one got it. I got an invitation to perform in MoMA, I could really show the work. I didn’t get an invitation to perform. I was to show my performance work from the past.
Louis: You were the first performance artist to be given a retrospective at MoMA.
Marina: This was taken seriously. The curator, Klaus Biesenbach, said to me, Okay, the artist is going to be present because you’re always in every work. Because I’m the artist and object that I’m working with. And when he said that, I knew what I was going to do, because you know, in old-fashioned stories, when you have an exhibition with the painting on the invitation, art is going to be present.
So, you come for the opening, blah, blah. I could do this too. I could come for the opening, have a great dinner with friends, go home, share my perspective, and die within the piece that I have in the excellent museum, but I want to show the transformative power of performance.
I want to be there every single day, this amount of time, never moving, to see what will happen—just sitting on the chair with the table and the chair in front of me. And then Klaus Biesenbach said to me, “You are totally ridiculous. This is New York. Nobody has time to sit in this chair. They’re just going to, you know, be empty”. The chair was never empty.
Marina Abramović doesn’t like pain at all; however, she wants to be a ‘mirror’ to those watching her performances: “If I can liberate myself from the fear of pain, you can do the same.”
Louis: Lips of Thomas. AKA Thomas’ lips. You sat nude, ate a kilogram of honey, drank red wine, then cut a five-pointed star in your abdomen with a razor and whipped yourself until you collapsed in exhaustion on a cross of ice blocks.
Marina: This performance I performed for one hour, then I reperformed it when I was 60 years old in the Guggenheim, for seven hours—the same piece.
Louis: You did it again, and there are pictures of you bleeding.
Marina: When it’s isolated, bleeding looks so terrible, terrifying. However, you need to understand the context. You understand why I’m doing what I’m doing?
Louis: Well, let’s understand the context.
Marina: So first of all, when I started working with my body, it was this whole idea at that time of body art. The body is the place where things happen. If you work with your body, the blood is the colour you use instead of paint. Instead of brushes, you use a razor. So, first thing that you ask yourself, what’s the limits of the physical body? Then you do performances, and you put yourself through the situation. When you expose the public to the physical limits of my body. And one thing that we, in our entire culture, are always afraid of is three things: pain, suffering, and mortality. And all the history of art is based on these three things. And what I do in performance, I stage that problem in front of the public, which I never do in my home. I don’t like pain at all. I even cut my little finger on the garlic, and I cry, but I stage them in front of the public, and I go through them. And if I can liberate myself from the fear of pain, you can do the same. I’m your mirror. You know, all of these things that you think were difficult. One of the most challenging things in my life was not this performance, but instead… It was sitting on the chair for eight hours without moving; that was hell.
A portion of Marina Abramović’s hair went grey following the physical stress of her controversial ‘Rhythm 0’ performance: “I started walking towards the public, and they all ran away. And I got back to the hotel, and I looked in the mirror, and I have a big piece of grey hair”
Louis: There’s also a famous Yoko Ono piece from the sixties called Cut, I think, and you see a film of it, and people come up and they just delicately and gingerly snip off pieces of her clothing.
Marina: To me, a very poetic piece, no comment. And then later on, she reperformed this piece with her son. [Rhythm 0 was] Different. This is unknown to the public. You never know [if they’re] going to kill you or not. I had the gun.
Louis: Well, the vibe of your piece was different. It sounded like there was aggression, hostility, and some strange sense that they wanted to harm you.
Marina: I was 23 years old, and I was so furious. How they treat performance art, I give my life for my idea. So you can do anything you want. I take full responsibility. I stand there in the gallery. There is a pistol in this bully. There are things for pleasure, for not pleasure. There are chains, there are axes, hell. And I didn’t do anything. And I said, Six hours, I’m going to stand there. And the public went crazy.
Louis: Were you surprised by the public’s reaction when you presented Rhythm 0?
Marina: I didn’t care about this. I care about my idea. That I am not a masochist in my work. I want to show that the public can f***ing kill you. And this is what I show in this piece, and I move on.
Louis: Yeah, but you were annoyed. They thought, ‘This woman thinks she’s an artist.’ Do you think that was in their heads, like, well, if you want us to use it, then we are going to show you what that’s really like. Was that in there?
Marina: You don’t worry about that. I don’t care about this. I only know that after six hours and the gallery says the six hours is over, I start walking towards the public. I was naked, I was full of blood. I was in a terrible state. Somebody cut my neck, drank the blood and all the rest.
Louis: Someone cut your neck and drank the blood.
Marina: And then I was walking to them, and they all ran away. And I got back to the hotel, and I looked in the mirror, and I have a big piece of grey hair.
Marina Abramović found her mother’s diaries after she passed away and was able to understand her motivations in ways she never did before: If I read one page of these diaries [when she was alive], my relationship with my mother would be very different. But I didn’t know.
Marina: Did you ever get beaten, the slap in the face with something done wrong in your life?
Louis: Yes.
Marina: Did you feel abused?
Louis: No.
Marina: No. Me either.
Louis: What about emotional pain? Sometimes the worst abuse isn’t physical.
Marina: Right. Okay. Okay. Now we are talking about much more interesting stuff. Physical pain is so easy to take. Emotional pain is hell. This is what my entire work has become, after really pushing my physical limits, I’ve transitioned into this mental area.
Louis: You’re talking about emotional pain you experienced in your art.
Marina: I talk about life.
Louis: We don’t have to talk about your childhood. But I feel like there was something there.
Marina: Emotional pain was terrible. I never felt loved ever. I always felt so lonely, abandoned. When I asked my mother, when I was 40 years old, why she never kissed me, she was so shocked. She said, Of course not to spoil you, but I found the diary of my mother when she died. She had Alzheimer’s. She has never been touched. She only touched me when she didn’t even know it was me with Alzheimer’s. When she died, I found her diaries, and I looked at them. This diary is the most heartbreaking. She was so lonely. My father left her when she was 42 for a 25-year-old woman, and she never lived with anybody else. She just was trying to make me a warrior. She didn’t want me to go through any emotional pain, and I didn’t know that. If I read one page of these diaries [when she was alive], my relationship with my mother would be very different. But I didn’t know.
Louis: She didn’t want you to go through emotional pain; therefore, she deprived you of emotional…
Marina: Completely, you know, completely damaged me.
Louis: How does that work? That doesn’t make any sense,
Marina: It’s fine. I mean, all of these experiences I put in my work. I liberate myself from a lot of these things. And now I would like to tell you that it took me many years to leave Yugoslavia, to leave my childhood behind, and to return here to Manchester to make Balkan Erotic Epic. I came back exactly to where I started my childhood and made peace with this.
After their split, Ulay wanted to work with Marina Abramović again, but she had to refuse as ‘the trust was gone’: “Ulay was interested to get back to work, but I could not do this anymore […] Because first of all, trust was gone.”
Louis: When you were with Ulay, obviously, he was German. He’d been born in Nazi Germany. You were born in communist Yugoslavia. It’s actually quite beautiful reading about it. You had this romance, you were vagabonds, artistic outlaws, travelling around for years, wilfully homeless. That was, I think, part of your commitment to the creative process in a small van. This would’ve been in the 1970s and then the early 1980s. Then you were planning this work, where you were going to walk half the length of the Great Wall of China, meet in the middle and get married. However, it took seven years to obtain the permits, and by then, you were already in trouble. So instead, you decided to meet and split up. You still did the artwork, but it had a different outcome.
But meanwhile, he’d been cheating around. He’d been cheating on you, right? He’d been womanising over the last three years.
Marina: In the last three years, we’d stopped living in the car. Nobody could cheat. We live in the car.
Louis: When you decided to split up from him, you almost sounded, not precisely an artwork because it was real life, but you took an approach to nearly fall out of love with him. […] You basically agreed to have a three-way with him.
Marina: No, this was before the split.
Louis: What I took it to mean was, so you agreed you didn’t really want to, he had a girlfriend, a sort of rock and roll chick.
Marina: He went to China to get permission to walk the Great Wall of China, and when I came to China to visit, to see where permissions are going, he was already with this woman, and they were sleeping [together] every night. And I say, can I come and be together? And this was the worst decision I have ever made. I described it very well in the book.
Louis: But it sounded like it was a process in order, whether it was deliberate or not, it allowed you to disconnect. The feelings were cauterised.
Marina: […] Something needed to happen that I stopped loving, like his smell. That was the end. You stop loving people’s smell. Nothing you can do about it. It was the end.
Louis: […] Watching the documentary, you have the impression that, rewatching it this morning, Ulay wanted to get back together with you.
Marina: Yeah, but Ulay was interested in getting back to work, but I could not do this anymore.
Louis: Did he want to work with you again?
Marina: Yes. […] he was asking me if he could do a few pieces together, and I said no.
Louis: Oh, you don’t think it was a romantic rapprochement?
Marina: No, no. […] Because first of all, trust was gone.
Marina Abramović’s sarcastic appraisal of the BBC’s coverage of Trump’s state visit: “The BBC made two programs on Trump, including 42 lies. Congratulations. This was really nice. Nice balance.”
Louis: You’ve talked about your upbringing being difficult, the parents being violent, maybe with each other.
Marina: It’s all true in the biography.
Louis: They were partisans. They were war heroes and loyal communists. They separated. Your mum has been described as extremely undemonstrative in her physical affection. Didn’t kiss you.
Marina: I mean, never touched me. My grandmother was terrific, and she hated communism.
Louis: The grandmother was a devout Orthodox Christian. Do you think you felt a lot of shame during your childhood? The idea you mentioned earlier, of owning shame, also made me think about shame in culture and Donald Trump.
Marina: How do you think about that? How you get Trump together with communism and my mother is fantastic, pretty genius.
Louis: I’m going to Trump shame. Because that shame is double-edged, shame is imprisoning. But you see someone like Trump, someone who has no shame, and that’s the source of enormous power. In a shame-based culture, if you have no shame, you are omnipotent. No one can embarrass or disgrace you because you say, Yeah, I did it. And no one cares.
Marina: But also show shameful things. I show this thing that I’m ashamed of, and I share it too.
Louis: […] because I’m thinking, like you were saying, we need to rid ourselves of shame, and I was thinking actually, no, I think we need shame, and some people need more shame.
Marina: It’s so interesting, this thing, I’m proud of shame. Let’s go back to Trump.
Louis: Yes. Have you met Trump?
Marina: Never.
Louis: Would you like to meet him?
Marina: No.
Louis: Why not?
Marina: I don’t care. […] But honestly, I want to say, I think he’s playing this all shameful story. This is an act.
Louis: I don’t think he’s capable of a different act, though, do you?
Marina: I don’t know. Actually, I’m not really busy with him. […] Something that I really, really loved about the BBC at the time, when he was visiting the palace, the BBC made two programs about Trump, including 42 lies. Congratulations. This was really nice. Nice balance.
Louis: I didn’t know that.
Marina: You never saw that?
Louis: I never watch television.
Marina: I knew it.
Louis: […] No, I watch a lot of television. […] It’s like sausages. If you know how they’re made, you don’t eat them. That’s a joke. I watch a lot of television.
Marina Abramovic refuses to give an opinion on Banksy: “I’m not telling [you] anything. I don’t like to say anything”
Louis: Do you like Banksy?
Marina: Huh?
Louis: Banksy?
Marina: I know all of them. Of course.
Louis: Do you like his Banksy?
Marina: No. I don’t have an opinion. I’m not telling [you] anything. I don’t like to say anything.
Louis: I think that’s a good approach. […] You’ve got nothing good to say. Say nothing at all. My grandfather used to say that, if you’ve got nothing good to say, then don’t say anything.
Marina: They’re all, you know, working, living artists and good for them.
Louis:[…]Do you sell?
Marina: I don’t have the same ability to make money from my work. I don’t have the ability like they do. But can I tell you how, most of the time, I earn my money? I taught for 25 years and had a salary. I taught in Germany, specifically in Hamburg and Berlin, as well as in Japan. I taught for three years in Paris. Now I don’t teach. I made the workshops. I made the big talks for five or six thousand people.
Louis: I think you’ve worked with BBC, Maestro. Let’s get that plug in there. You’ve completed some courses for BBC Maestro, which are available to view online.
Marina: BBC maestro is fantastic. What we’ve done just now, BBC Maestro, which I’ve done […] 28 exercises that you can actually get anytime you want to learn my Abramovic method.
Conspiracy theorists sent Marina Abramović flowers to commemorate ‘children’ she ‘ate’ following infamous conspiracist Alex Jones’ allegations: “It really, really affects me. One other thing that’s really terrible is that America is so full of this kind of people who can really go and blow your head [off] for no reason”
Louis: Can we talk about the Pizzagate thing? That must have been stressful.
Marina: Yes, because I have a life warning.
Louis: Death threats, do you mean?
Marina: Yes, you know, they will come and take the devil out of my body. […] From one day to another, I opened my email and it’s bombarded with, I’m the witch, that I’m eating children, that I’m drinking blood with Hillary Hinton in Pizzagate, I’m in complete shock.
Louis: They put it together with the preexisting narrative, which was based on a kind of bonkers conspiracy theory to do with the trafficking of children and satanic ritual abuse. There was a framework for it, and you slotted into it perfectly, completely.
Marina: You know, I had to change my emails, change credit cards because there was an attack on me. They were going to come and cut my throat, they’re going to take devils out to me.
Louis: […] Was [Alex Jones] a ringleader for the allegations against you?
Marina: That is Alex Jones
Louis: Did he get in touch with you, or was he talking about you?
Marina: No, talking about me. Not in touch. Then he actually promoted me from the priestess to the highest priestess.
Louis: According to Alex Jones.
Marina: So I got so fed up with this shit. I made a big article in the New York Times saying, I’m not a satanist, I’m an artist, and you know, nothing I can do, and it’s still there. And you know, I have to start having bodyguards […] I had to be accompanied by a guard every single day to go to the theatre and back because there was an alarm that people with weapons might be present in the theatre while I was there.
Louis: Because of Alex Jones’ stuff?
Marina: All this, yeah. Then, on the last day of the performance, when I was leaving, an enormous, beautiful arrangement made from fresh roses was set up in front of the theatre, with the heart at its centre. And I was thinking this for me, finishing the work. And they said, No, no, this is for the children you just ate. Honestly, it’s not fun at all. […] I have two agents come to my house to see if I’m okay, because they found the list somewhere in Arizona with my name on the list as a target. That’s not fun. Oh, so I don’t like this at all, and really, there’s nothing I can do about it.
Louis: I wish I could say, Oh, put it out of your mind or move on. But you’re right, it festers.
Marina: It really, really affects me. One other thing that’s really terrible is that America is so full of this kind of people who can really go and blow your head [off] for no reason. There is a group of people who absolutely believe that the Earth is flat.
Louis: Do, do you still live in America?
Marina: I do.
Louis: So you have to be careful.
Marina: I am. I’m trying my best. Really.
Top Photo: P C Robinson © Artlyst 2025/ Transcript courtesy © The Louis Theroux Podcast
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