Artist Who Was ‘Ready To Die’ After Allowing Strangers To Do Anything To Her For Six Hours Reveals Its Long-Lasting Effects

The aftermath of a contentious performance by a famous artist in the 1970s had far-reaching consequences.

A six-hour endurance art performance called ‘Rhythm 0’ was hosted by Serbian artist Marina Abramović in 1974.

For six hours, Marina lay out a variety of objects in front of her and let passers-by do with them what they wanted.

The 72 objects included everything from scissors and a pistol to perfume and flowers.

The unorthodox piece was created to test the audience’s limits.

While people were initially hesitant to get involved, eventually they grew more confident and ended up inflicting some harrowing acts on Marina.

By the end of it, Marina says she was ‘ready to die’.

Marina revealed how ‘Rhythm 0’ impacted her for a while after the performance, which was decades ago.

Revealing in a 2010 interview with The Guardian that she still had the scars from the cuts inflicted on her, Marina further shared: “After the performance, I have one streak of white hair on my head.

“I cannot get rid of the feeling of fear for a long time. Because of this performance, I know where to draw the line so as not to put myself at such risk.”

In a more recent interview last year, Marina said that she’ll only do something ‘if [she’s] afraid of it’.

“If there’s something I would like to do, I don’t do it,” the artist told the Royal Academy.

“I only do something if I’m afraid of it, because that’s the whole point. If we always tend to do things that we like, then we are creating the same pattern, making the same mistakes again, and we never get out into unknown territory.”

Going on to speak about her ‘The Artist is Present’ exhibition, which was further looked at in 2012 documentary titled, Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present, Marina questioned if she’d gone crazy.

She recalled: “I remember when I first had the first idea for ‘The Artist is Present’, I said to myself, ‘Oh my God, I’m crazy. How can I do this for three months?’ But then I became obsessed.

“And it was so hard. It was supernatural to do this – to sit in front of thousands of different people, eight hours a day for three months. There were days when I thought I could not continue. But I did it. And this came out of the complete fear that I could not do it.”