An artist who famously allowed the public to do “anything to her” for a performance has opened up about why she had nine orgasms during a separate piece.
Marina Abramović is a very provocative artist who often pushes the boundaries when it comes to her work.
Known for pushing boundaries, the 78-year-old icon has once again left the internet speechless after revealing intimate details behind one of her boldest recreations: a performance that led her to have nine orgasms — in public.
In case you need a reminder of some of Abramović’s most infamous exhibitions, she once stood motionless in a Naples gallery for six hours, allowing complete strangers to do whatever they wanted to her using 72 objects laid out on a table — including scissors, a scalpel, and even a loaded gun.
So what you’re about to read shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise.
During her Seven Easy Pieces series at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, she ventured into new — and explicitly sexual — territory.
In 2005, Abramović re-enacted a controversial 1972 performance by artist Vito Acconci called Seedbed.
In Acconci’s original, the artist hid under a wooden ramp in a gallery and masturbated for hours, speaking his sexual fantasies through speakers to the visitors walking overhead.
So when Abramović decided to recreate Seedbed, the expectations — and intensity — were high.
Her rendition of Seedbed stayed true to the original: hidden under a ramp, masturbating for hours while pre-recorded audio played out her fantasies for the audience above.
But what drew her to such an explicit piece?
According to NY Arts, Abramović told the Guggenheim’s curator that it was the “taboo element” that initially intrigued her — along with the “sculptural element” of Acconci’s performance.
She later confessed to New York Magazine: “Having orgasms publicly, being excited by the visitors steps above me — it’s really not easy, I tell you! I’ve never concentrated so hard in my life.
“The problem for me, with this piece, was the absence of public gaze: only the sound. But I heard that people had a great time; it was like a big party up there! I ended with nine orgasms. It was terrible for the next piece — I was so exhausted!”
Speaking to Art Monthly, Abramović explained that Seven Easy Pieces came from a place of frustration.
“You know in all these years performance was nobody’s territory. But now everybody — I mean everybody — was taking from performance. Even Lady Gaga — you name it — and without really referring to the original material,” she said.
To reclaim that space and remind audiences where performance art began, she got permissions and paid fees to legally and ethically re-stage foundational works by iconic artists.
Still, she acknowledged the physical difference between re-enacting Seedbed as a woman. “This one is very complicated because men produce sperm but a woman produces something else,” she noted.
And when asked about the nature of orgasm itself, she didn’t hesitate to reflect deeply.
Abramović once described the moment of climax as something almost spiritual: “Such an important moment,” she said. “[It] can make you feel life, connected to nature, birds, the rocks, the trees; everything becomes luminous and beautiful.”
While her art might not be for you, it’s hard to deny that it captures attention.