Marina Abramović: Only change and raising awareness can prevent wars

Performance artist Marina Abramović said in Budva that "only by raising and changing people's consciousness" can the world be changed for the better.

Changing consciousness is one of her missions, she said during the one-hour presentation of her book "Walk through walls" in the old town of Budva.

"Only raising awareness can prevent wars," said Marina Abramović.

The book, she said, is dedicated to a wider audience in order to understand how layered an artist's life is.

"'Friends became enemies, and enemies became friends when I dedicated the book to them,'" said the artist before the audience of the old town in Budva.

The space between the churches was small enough to accommodate the interested visitors who breathlessly followed and participated in the one-hour meeting with Abramović, for whom this is the second visit to Montenegro in the last five years.

Unlike the previous one, when the project of repurposing the former halls of the "Obod" factory was publicly announced and presented under her name and she was welcomed by the prime minister and high officials of the state, this time Abramović came at the invitation of the "Dukly Art Center" (Dukly European Art Centre) run by Russian gallerist and publicist Marat Gelman.

Since that project did not take off and Abramović distanced herself from it, there was no word about it, nor was it of interest to the audience, which included the Minister of Culture Janko Ljumović, as well as the mayors of Cetinje Aleksandar Bogdanović and Budva Dragan Krapović.

The artist shared with the audience parts of her childhood, the experience of love, disappointment, suffering, thoughts about death and performance as a "path, not a goal".

She addressed the audience all the time in the local languages, although the sighs of relief with which she signified the spontaneous switch to English showed that it is a language that is easier to communicate with, after 42 years since she left the former Yugoslavia.

She says that she owes her persistence and success in her work to her mother, who instilled military discipline in her.

"I had a difficult childhood, with parents who had little in common and who did not show emotions," said Marina and announced that one of her theses is "the worse childhood you have, the better artist you become, because you have enough material on which you can to work".

Abramović talked about the change she goes through during the performance, after which she is "never the same person".

He says that in performance art he is more interested in the process than the result, but also that its power of transformation requires a "complete sacrifice".

She ended the presentation and conversation with the audience by showing a postcard that her brother once sent her.

The postcard features a Montenegrin, his daughter and sister. He walks upright with a small bag in his hands, and those behind him are smiling, bent over from the burden on their backs.

"I'm happy that I avoided this kind of humiliation," concluded Abramović's speech.