Since the beginning of her career in Belgrade during the early 1970s, Marina Abramovic has pioneered performance art, creating some of the form's most important early works. Exploring her physical and mental limits, she has withstood pain, exhaustion, and danger in her quest for emotional and spiritual transformation.
Abramovic was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 1997 Venice Biennale. In 2010, Abramovic had her first major U.S. retrospective and simultaneously performed for over 700 hours in The Artist is Present at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Abramovic founded Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI), a platform for immaterial and long durational work to create new possibilities for collaboration among thinkers of all fields.