var d = new Date(); The memoir is really close to what its like to spend a weekend with her: Abramovic is funny, generous, and vituperative, a raconteur and comedian and the sometimes sad-sack hero of the epic tale of her mad life. Employing duration, pain, danger, exhaustion, and viewer participation, she works at extremes as she complicates the relationship between art and audience. We go down the rabbit hole of YouTube videos to find that a recent controversy points to much bigger issues about American culture. Of course, its incredibly fun, you feel like youre the center of the universe. I know hes right, and this is even before we go skinny-dipping in her pool and into the sacred part of her forest to visit her favorite tree, the most spiritually powerful one on her 26-acre retreat. I was thinking, If Im meant to live, I live; if I dont, I dont.. She loves the Guardian, she says, but even we have turned on her. Abramovics work has never been easy to collect, or at least not particularly attractive to very rich collectors. I set out to trace the origin of the backlash. 7 Deaths of Maria Callas. No, I believe in the world I made around myself. I ask if she has many scars. script.integrity = "sha256-hVVnYaiADRTO2PzUGmuLJr8BLUSjGIZsDYGmIJLv2b8="; The director, whose new documentary The 13th chronicles Americas history of racial subjugation, talks to Rebecca Traister about Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the modern criminal-justice system.. After an open casting call for local artists, they pick the best ones, then train them in her method and wait for the crowds to come. } And Im 70, you know. $.fn.serializeFormJSON = function () { But I have never been a feminist. She was raised by her mother. + '