Re-performing Nude with Skeleton

RE_PERFORMING

NUDE WITH SKELETON

A performance by  Marina Abramović

 

She says of this performance:


„The work is really about facing your own mortality. Is about fear of pain and fear of dying. It's something that in our life we fear the most.“

 

For me, working alongside my wonderful colleagues Aya Toraiwa, Miki Shoji, Emma Lusena Ash, Yiannis Pappas, Roksolana Anakvatska, Rachel Bo Clark, Phoenix Chase-Meares, Itchi Fleischer, and Alex Dimitriou—to whom I am deeply grateful—has been a long journey.

 

In the end, I gave a total of 29 performances over a period of two months. Here’s a brief account from my perspective:

 

THE SILENT PAIN

 

Each performance is a journey. A ritual that always follows the same pattern. On the surface, not much happens. But inside me, it does. It remains largely hidden from the audience, since I lie completely motionless beneath the skeleton. Every single performance ends in pain. I could stop. But I don’t. I’m not a masochist, but the truly interesting part begins now—and perhaps only in this way. The big question, after all, is: how do we deal with our pain? In the end, there always comes a moment when I let go completely. Usually when I feel like I can’t take it anymore. I transport myself to other spaces and observe the pain from there. I take on a new perspective, bring it into balance. I know it will end. “That’s how it will be for all of us,” flashes through my mind.

 

The skeleton is a symbol of everything we have to endure in life.

 

Then comes the release. The weight is lifted from me. And Islowly return. Only now do I realize how far I’ve traveled. I let life flow back into my body, giving myself the time it takes to be able to move through the outside world again. This moment in the performance is something very special to me—the link between the inner and the outer. Now I am naked and vulnerable down to the bone. But I am also strong. And I invite the audience to join me in this experience and bear witness to this moment.

 

My last performances in August:

01.08.  2 - 4pm

05.08.  2 - 4pm

08.08.  2 - 4pm

19:08.  2 - 4pm

22.08.  2 - 4pm

 

The exhibition is curated by Agnes Gryczkowska, Curator and Author, and Jenny Schlenzka, Director of Gropius Bau, with Elena Franziska Setzer, Assistant Curator, Gropius Bau, and Savannah Thümler, Curatorial Assistant , Gropius Bau 

 

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic is funded by Hauptstadtkulturfond of Berlin

 

Further information to the exhibition:https://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/gropius-bau/programm/2026/ausstellungen/marina-abramovic

 

14.04. - 22.08.2026, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany