Marina Abramović (Serbian Cyrillic: Марина Абрамовић, (:maˌrǐːna abˈrǎːmoʋit͡ɕ); born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian performance artist based in New York.〔For Serbian,
〕 Her work explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. Active for over three decades, Abramović has been described as the "grandmother of performance art." She pioneered a new notion of identity by bringing in the participation of observers, focusing on "confronting pain, blood, and physical limits of the body."
==Early life and education==
Abramović was born in Belgrade, Serbia. Her great uncle was Patriarch Varnava of the Serbian Orthodox Church.〔
Judith Thurman, Profiles, (“Walking Through Walls,” ) ''The New Yorker'', March 8, 2010, p. 24.〕 Both of her parents were Yugoslav Partisans during the Second World War: Her father Vojo was a commander who was acclaimed as a national hero after the war, her mother Danica a major in the army and, in the 1960s, director of the Museum of the Revolution and Art in Belgrade.
Her father left the family in 1964. In an interview published in 1998, Abramović described how her "mother took complete military-style control of me and my brother. I was not allowed to leave the house after 10 o'clock at night till I was 29 years old. ... ()ll the performances in Yugoslavia I did before 10 o'clock in the evening because I had to be home then. It's completely insane, but all of my cutting myself, whipping myself, burning myself, almost losing my life in the firestar, everything was done before 10 in the evening."〔Quoted in Thomas McEvilley, "Stages of Energy: Performance Art Ground Zero?" in Abramović, ''Artist Body,'' (1998 ).〕
She was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade from 1965 to 1970. She completed her post-graduate studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, SR Croatia in 1972. From 1973 to 1975, she taught at the Academy of Fine Arts at Novi Sad, while implementing her first solo performances.
From 1971 to 1976, she was married to Neša Paripović. In 1976, she went to Amsterdam to perform a piece (later claiming on the day of her birthday)〔http://abramovic.garageccc.com/en/works/7〕 then decided to move there permanently.