Marina Abramovic

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Since the beginning of her career in Belgrade during the early 1970s, Marina Abramovic has pioneered the use of performance as a visual art form. The body has always been both her subject and her medium, and she has withstood pain, exhaustion and danger in her ongoing quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. As a vital member of the generation of pioneering performance artists that includes Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, and Chris Burden, Abramovic created some of the most historic early performance pieces.  Of these artists, she is the only one still making important durational works. 

Kristine Stiles is Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, and has contributed to numerous books, including Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object (1997), Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings (1996) and Phaidon’s Paul McCarthy (1995).

Klaus Biesenbach is the Founding Director of Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, and Curator at the Museum of Modern Art and its affiliate, the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York.

Chrissie Iles is Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, where she co-curated the 2004 and 2006 Whitney Biennials.

On the Contemporary Artists Series

“The boldest, best executed, and most far-reaching publishing project devoted to contemporary art. These books will revolutionize the way contemporary art is presented and written about.”—Artforum

“The combination of intelligent analysis, personal insight, useful facts and plentiful pictures is a superb format invaluable for specialists but also interesting for casual readers, it makes these books a must for the library of anyone who cares about contemporary art.”—Time Out

“A unique series of informative monographs on individual artists.”—The Sunday Times

“Gives the reader the impression of a personal encounter with the artists. Apart from the writing which is lucid and illuminating, it is undoubtedly the wealth of lavish illustrations which makes looking at these books a satisfying entertainment.”—The Art Book

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