“When I taught art, I was always asked, 'How do you know you're an artist? What makes you an artist?' And to me, it's like breathing. You don't question if you breathe; you have to breathe. So if you wake up in the morning, and you have to realize an idea, and there's another idea, and another, maybe you are really an artist.”

Serbian conceptual and performance artist

Marina Abramović is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Active for more than four decades, she is known for work that has helped define performance art. Her art explores body art, endurance art, the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. Her work has been described as reshaping the language of contemporary performance art.