Marina Abramović
Serbian performance artist (born 1946)
Marina Abramović (Serbian Cyrillic: Марина Абрамовић, pronounced [marǐːna abrǎːmovitɕ]; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, the relationship between the performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. Active for over four decades, she has been described by the Evening Standard as "perhaps the single most important figure in performance art", while Aesthetica noted her work has "reshaped the very language of contemporary performance art".
Abramović refers to herself as the "grandmother of performance art". She pioneered a new notion of artistic identity by bringing in the participation of observers, focusing on "confronting pain, blood, and physical limits of the body". In 2007, she founded the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI), a non-profit foundation for performance art.
Early life
Abramović was born in Belgrade, PR Serbia, FPR Yugoslavia, on November 30, 1946. In an interview, Abramović described her family as having been "Red bourgeoisie". Her great-uncle was Varnava, Serbian Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Both of her Montenegrin-born parents, Danica Rosić and Vojin Abramović, were Yugoslav Partisans during World War II. After the war, Abramović's parents were given positions in the postwar Yugoslavian government.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Marina Abramović” is serbian performance artist (born 1946). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Marina, Abramović and Serbian, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “serbian performance artist (born 1946)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q47496. VIAF identifies the subject as 37035899. The Library of Congress control number is n88060401. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946 and 2007.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Marina Abramović”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Marina Abramović primary sources, Marina Abramović archive and Marina research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Marina Abramović”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Marina Abramović” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.