Marina Abramović – Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition


“All energy we have in our bodies is sexual energy. We can use it for creativity or spiritual matters. Or we can repress it, and then it becomes aggression, war, anger and torture. It’s so interesting to see how such transformations were organised in a different society based on rituals.”
 – Marina Abramović

The queue to enter Gropius Bau on the opening night of the exhibition was jaw-dropping – stretching not only around the corner of the museum, but the stream of people arriving seemed not to stop. Stepping out of the subway already felt more like a procession than an ordinary Tuesday evening in Berlin. And that even though the artist was not present – except for a short video statement projected onto the massive screen in the museum’s Lichthof, which otherwise shows Tito’s Funeral (2025), one of the most recent works in the exhibition. It engages with a historical moment of collective outpouring, taken from the 1980 state funeral of the former socialist leader Josip Broz Tito. The screen is filled with a group of women dressed in black, symbolising Narikače – women hired to mourn publicly, to channel sorrow through lamentation. The rhythmic movements transform loss into a transcendental state, a near-erotic release. And while the sound of the performance fills the room with its mood, a priestess is seated in front on a wooden throne, singing life into death.

In Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition, Abramović reflects on her ambivalent relationship with the socialist politics of Yugoslavia, where she was born in Belgrade, and expands her gaze across the Balkan region more broadly, using folkloric signs, symbols and myths throughout.

Earlier, I decided to skip the press preview, which normally allows generous space to engage with works and wall texts – and instead chose to experience the opening as it unfolded: the interaction between Abramović’s works and the audience. Because her performances – whether live or as residues – only fully emerge when watched, absorbed, and reacted to.

And so I find myself among hundreds of others, navigating screens, breasts, penises, symbols of pain, death and life. Standing in front of an installation – at first rather unassuming – playing with Balkan cultural attire and the archetypes of a larger-than-life mother–witch–priestess gathered at its centre, while to the left and right of her are five men each. And of course, it wouldn’t be Marina without the moment. Their penises out. A moment of chuckling – then they move! And suddenly I realise my friends and I are in a crowded room of mostly serious faces, giggling, laughing, commenting on the absurdity of it all. I wonder about etiquette. About behaviour. And I think Abramović would have enjoyed our enjoyment. Isn’t that what her work has always challenged? The status quo of behaviour, structure, order. By pushing, forcing us? Giving us the choice between standing still and reacting. Sometimes to the edge, when she puts herself on the line.

And I find that is the brilliance of her work – her extreme composure, her stillness in action that creates this in-between space where ‘nothing’ happens, and she stretches it to a point so unbearable that one almost bursts. There is, of course, an intrinsic narcissism to that. But perhaps that’s only fair.

We live in societies built on rituals – mechanisms that continuously reassert structure and position. Re-enacting their own authority just often enough so no one steps outside the line. And for that, I admire Abramović’s continuous effort – her own anti-ritual ritual, so to speak. Her stoic demeanour occupies space. It carries the depth, the gravitas of her work. One must also acknowledge the longevity of her practice. She is 79 years old! And looking at the ephemerals and videos from the performance Lips of Thomas (1975) – her young body, naked, with the same stoic gaze, the same conviction – there is a continuity that is almost unsettling in its clarity.

One could argue that her work relies on shock, especially her earlier works – the visceral, the physical pain she inflicts on herself – making us witnesses, participants even. But it is much more than that. 

“You know when you’re a young artist, you have this urge to do certain things and you have the ideas, but you don’t see continuation and you don’t see relation to a piece you’ve done before.” – Abramović (2005)

Her more recent work in the exhibition leans heavily on video, exploring the rituals of pagan customs, myths and beliefs from different countries across the Balkans. Reimagining it as a place where erotic energy functions as a means for communities to confront death, ensure fertility, and restore balance within the natural world, such as Fucking the Ground / Fertility Rites (2025).

My first association when I see the movement of hips and butts up and down against the surface of the earth – the grass that, although black-and-white, seems so alive and innocent – is rape, violence and repulsion. But after a while, looking at all these male bodies flat on their bellies, dispersed across that field, it starts to become grotesque in an interesting, almost funny way. I take my time to look at the bodies, shapes and rhythms, and their longing for this juicy, alive earth, which keeps minding its own business. It is about the power and strength and fertility of man, but it is also this working hard to be noticed and recognised and, yes, loved.

Especially when looking at the contrast with the opposite video in full colour, which shows a group of women in folkloric dresses soaking up the rain – being active and so happy with themselves, their bodies and their vulvas: Scaring the Gods to Stop the Rain (2025) engages with belief systems and myths across cultures and eras, such as the legend of Baubo and Demeter, the Greek goddess of harvest and fertility, as well as the Japanese Shintō goddess of dawn, joy and festivity, Ame-no-Uzume.

All in all, Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition is a wild ride, and I appreciate her rigour in showing a radicality that we don’t often see in contemporary art beyond it being a prop. Between the extremes she explores – the funny and grotesque and the deeply poetic – she seems like the grande dame of a passing generation of artists who saw being an artist in such an absolute way – it is tragic and utterly commendable.

– A personal highlight from Spirit Cooking (1996):
“on top of a volcano
open your mouth
wait until your tongue becomes flame
close your mouth
take a deep breath”

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Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition
15.4. – 23.8.2026
Gropius Bau, Berlin