'Talking Trash: Digging the Dirt with Marina Abramović' – Elephant magazine

22 September 2022

The performance art legend plans to enjoy every last second of existence. She talks to Emily Steer about film making, opera and rubbish bins

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Marina Abramović is a lot of fun. It’s autumn 2021, and photographer Maciek Pożoga has just 15 minutes to capture one of the art world’s most famous faces. After a quick shoot outside the Royal Academy (in 2023, the Serbian artist will become the first woman in the institution’s 250-year history to have a solo show in the main galleries), Abramović becomes enthralled by a trash container heaving with bags in the corner of a car park.

Dashing under a shutter which begins to close behind her (to the mild panic of the accompanying gallerists and the Elephant team), she situates herself in front of the bins: this is where she would like to be photographed. She leans nonchalantly against the edge as Pożoga snaps away.

“You must print the photo with the bins,” she tells me as we sit down to talk, “It will be so funny.” If people expect Abramović to be serious, ferocious even, it is likely down to the relationship many have with death and pain. Her interest in these subjects is often seen as a sombre commitment to the macabre (some corners of the internet have even accused her of being a Satanist). But for the humorous artist, exploring death is a way to embrace life.

Read the full interview via Elephant.