Marina Abramović at the Kochi Biennale: On endurance, controversy and performance art  

Experience Marina Abramović's powerful insights on endurance, art, and controversy at the Kochi Biennale's captivating performance

With a thousand strangers and Marina Abramović, I breathe in. Out. In again.

The world’s most famous — and most controversial — performance artiste sits on stage watching us, dressed in flowing white, her Rapunzel hair falling over one shoulder, her nails painted blood red. “I always ask for the most uncomfortable chair,” she said earlier, gliding onto the stage. “It keeps me alert.”

The room is silent. “Breathe in,” she says, with the calm authority of someone who has spent decades testing the limits of her own body. “Breathe out.” Again and again. Twelve times in all.

My mind is racing. We are at the Kochi Muziris Biennale 2026 to listen to Marina talk about the history of performance art. The artiste, now 79, has built a career on endurance — her own, and sometimes ours.

At the talk, which is based on many, many video clips, there are moments when I, along with other members of the audience beside me, cover our eyes or look away. “When you start performance you are like a child walking in unknown territory. First I had to find what the limits are of my physical body,” says Marina. She adds, “Suffering. Mortality. Fear of pain. These are the three things people are afraid of. Every kind of art deals with this. I want to show the public, I am the mirror. If I can do this, causing pain to get free from the pain, you can do it yourself.”

She continues, “Art has so much more to do these days, especially in the society we are living in... I don’t believe that art can change the world, but art can point to problems, and can ask the right questions.” She adds, “Being an artiste is to be able to sacrifice everything. And it is a very lonely life.”