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Marina Abramovic returns to China with a new exhibition – 36 years after her famous Great Wall Walk

Abramovic, now 77, pushed her body to its limits, taking performance art mainstream – for her new Shanghai show, she invites the audience to step into her shoes

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Marina Abramovic performs 7 Deaths of Maria Callas at Gran Teatre Del Liceu in March 2023, in Barcelona, Spain. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 4:00am, 27 Oct 2024

She has recorded herself playing the knife game, methodically thrusting a blade between splayed fingers and inevitably nicking flesh and moaning. Then there is footage of her flogging her body before lying naked and bloody on ice. And who can forget the clips showing her trekking thousands of kilometres across the Great Wall of China to meet a lover – only to part ways upon arrival? That long march, 36 years ago, is the inspiration for her latest work.

Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic walks the Great Wall of China in 1988. Photo: courtesy of Marina Abramovic

So, when performance artist Marina Abramovic, 77, says she won’t have age or ill health slow her down, you want to believe that she is being serious and that she will always be in the “here and now”.

The Serb, who lives in New York, is fond of that phrase, using it to explain some of her creations, including The Artist is Present. In 2010, that landmark work attracted 750,000 visitors, including Lady Gaga, to New York’s Museum of Modern Art, where, for two-and-a-half months, Abramovic sat on a chair for eight hours straight a day – without food, drink or bathroom breaks – inviting spectators to take their place opposite her and lock eyes, in silence, for as long as they wished.

Marina Abramovic’s Reprogramming Levitation 2, 2000. Aluminium, liquid brass paint, brass cable and fixing, natural clear quartz. Photo: Marina Abramovic

The feat of endurance marked a key moment in art history and burnished her reputation as a pioneer pushing body and mind beyond limits to bring performance art from the margins to the mainstream.

In an interview with PostMag on the eve of her first exhibition in China, Abramovic reflects on her staying power – at the same time talking about knee replacement and a recent near-death experience. “My generation already stopped working 20 years ago,” she says, her eyes sparkling behind large, black horn-rimmed glasses. “I am the only one who’s still performing.”

But the Shanghai show also reveals that the artist is ready to do things differently. For the first time, Abramovic will be shifting the focus of her exhibition from herself to her audience, encouraging them to be performers rather than simply passive observers.

Marina Abramovic’s Shoes for Departure (1991/2017). Photo: courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery

“I’ve done everything with performance. I’ve done it for so long and I don’t want to repeat myself. All of this stuff that I’ve been doing when I was young and full of energy is one thing. But the world has changed and I have changed,” she says. “So, right now, my entire vision for my work is about how I can actually make the public perform and get the experience that I had through my work, and how that experience can change them.”