KH: My first encounter with your work was through a photograph. In my head your performances existed in a monochromatic, grainy world. It was through these photographs that I learned about the power of performance art, and what a simple gesture can evoke and shift in someone’s mind. Looking back at these images fifty years into your career, how would you describe the role of photography in your work?   

MA: At that time, the hegemonic approach was to not record anything. The idea was that performance is an immaterial and ephemeral form of art not to be preserved. Then I realised that that was a stupid decision. Only a small audience were witness to it at any given time: an audience of 30 people was considered a big audience! Once the performance ends, it lingers only in the memory of the handful witnesses who saw the work. And when these people die, we’re left with nothing. So early on, I started thinking about documenting my work. I approached the documentation process in the same way I approached my art, dedicated the same amount of time and attention to it. 

KH: So back in the 70s while doing these performances you were already thinking about the future perception of your work? 

MA: Yes, that’s the reason I’m one of the few artists from that period to have documentation of my work, even though we didn’t have the money for good cameras. 

KH: I read that on a few occasions cameramen or the audience would intervene in a performance and save you from unconsciousness. I'm wondering, for you, where do performance and documentation meet? Where does the collaboration begin and where does it end?   

MA: I'm a total control freak. The first time that somebody filmed a video of a piece of mine was this piece I was doing with a comb in my hair. It was in Denmark, around 1975. I never gave him any instructions. And immediately after the performance, I wanted to see what he did – and it was terrible! When he showed me the footage I immediately pressed delete. Then I set-up the camera and repeated the performance, this time imagining that the camera was my audience. All he did was press the button.   

KH: So there is, in a way, very much a direction that you already plan as you conceptualize the piece.   

MA: It's the only way I can do it. It’s important for the photo work to have integrity. We started that performance 16 hours before the public came; and when they came, we performed for one more hour. Each hour is one image, and the 17th hour is the final image. Everything is recorded with a concept in mind.   

KH: In your work you dare to show the painful parts of reality, you hold up a mirror showing the audience what they’re capable of. To which extent are your works made up of reflections of society?   

MA: In Rhythm 01, for example, I don’t do anything. I stand there in stillness and I give them objects; they can do whatever they want. There’s a pistol and a bullet, and if you want to kill me, you can kill me.  But women – for some reason – never really do anything at all, not protect me nor harm me. They might wipe away my tears or tell men what to do, but that’s all. I think that was an accurate reflection of society at the time. If I repeat this performance today, they might kill me.     

 KH: Stillness is something we recognise in photography, the freezing of a moment if you want. Here the photograph is performance and document at once.  

MA: Exactly, because there's nothing happening. It’s about the stillness. You can hear our hearts beating. I think this is the best representation of how photography and performance can work together.   

MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ has pioneered performance as a visual art form since the beginning of her career in the 1970s, with performances that married concept with physicality, endurance with empathy, complicity with loss of control, and passivity with danger. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai; the Main Galleries of the Royal Academy of Arts in London; the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and many more. She was awarded the U.S. Art Critics Association Award for Best Exhibition of Time-Based Art, Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art in Vienna, the Honorary Royal Academician status by The Royal Academy in London, and most recently, the Sonning Prize from the University of Copenhagen. In 2024, she was awarded an honorary degree from the Albertina Academy in Turin and the Luxembourg Peace Prize. 

KATY HUNDERTMARK is an Amsterdam-based artist, editor and curator with a special interest in art practices that reframe and expand the photographic canon. She currently works as managing editor of Foam Magazine as well as curator at Foam Museum, and writes a Substack newsletter on all things photography and publishing, called Dear Midnight. Through an international approach she aims to create cross-cultural connections and mutual understanding between makers, audiences and institutions worldwide. She has lectured at art schools like ECAL (Lausanne), KABK (The Hague) and LABA (Valencia).