Accompanying catalogue for the Marina Abramović exhibition at the Royal Academy from 23 September – 4 January 2024. The exhibition travels to the Stedlijk in March 2024.

Over the past half century, Marina Abramović has earned worldwide acclaim as a pioneer of performance art. This handsome new book records the first UK exhibition to include works from her entire career. Re-performances of some of her best-known and most radical pieces appear alongside new and recent work. An augmented-reality app for iOS and Android enables readers to watch films of Abramović’s original performances while reading the book.

An essential purchase for all followers of Abramović’s extraordinary 55-year career, this important publication brings expert voices into the debate that her groundbreaking art engenders. How far should an artist push herself in pursuit of her work? What role does the audience play in creating a performance? How can performance art outlive the moment in which it takes place?

Text in Dutch.

Karen Archey is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Adrian Heathfield is Professor of Performance and Visual Culture at the University of Roehampton, London. Svetlana Racanović is Professor of Theory of Contemporary Art in the Faculty of Fine Arts Cetinje at the University of Montenegro. Andrea Tarsia is Director of Exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Devin Zuber is Associate Professor of American Studies, Religion and Literature at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, and George F. Dole Professor of Swedenborgian Studies at the Center for Swedenborgian Studies, Berkeley.