Few artists have transformed the landscape of contemporary art as profoundly as Marina Abramović. For over five decades, the Serbian-born performer has redefined the very concept of artistic experience, turning the human body into both medium and message and pushing audiences to confront the raw edges of endurance, vulnerability and intimacy. Abramović’s practice is not merely performative – it is a philosophical enquiry, a meditation on presence and a radical reimagining of what art can be.
Born in Belgrade in 1946, Abramović grew up in a household shadowed by rigid discipline. Her father, a Yugoslav army general, instilled in her a resilience that would later become a hallmark of her practice while her mother, a trained gymnast and dancer, introduced her to the rigour and precision of the body. Early on, Abramović explored painting, but it was the visceral immediacy of performance that captivated her. By the early 1970s, she had begun testing the limits of her physical and emotional endurance, creating performances that blurred the line between artist and audience, spectacle and lived experience.
Her works are often characterised by stark minimalism, relentless repetition and a fearless engagement with pain, time and the gaze. One of her most seminal pieces, Rhythm 0 (1974), invited audiences to use her body as an object – a study in trust, risk and human behaviour. Later, The Artist Is Present (2010) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York cemented her legacy: for three months Abramović sat silently across from hundreds of museum visitors, creating an almost religious encounter with presence itself. The performance became a global phenomenon, a meditation on the power of eye contact and the intensity of shared silence. And then there was Ulay, her artistic and personal partner from 1976–1988. Their collaborations – most famously The Lovers (1988), where they walked from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China to meet in the middle – explored intimacy, trust and the ephemeral nature of performance.
It is within this trajectory of reinvention that Saatchi Yates presents its latest exhibition, running from 1–31 October 2025. In a daring conceptual leap, the gallery transforms Abramović’s iconic performance videos, Blue Period and Red Period, into a series of 1,200 individual photographic stills. This ambitious undertaking recasts the temporality of her performances into a fragmented yet intimate visual archive, offering audiences a chance to dwell on each microgesture and oscillation of expression.
Red Period is immediately arresting. Abramović appears bathed in monochrome red—a hue charged with energy, desire and danger. She beckons, teases and at moments confronts the viewer directly, her gestures oscillating between allure and exhaustion. The red is not simply aesthetic; it is symbolic, gesturing toward femininity, seduction, vitality and even the anonymity and power dynamics of sex work. Her face is at once performative and vulnerable—a site where the personal and the archetypal collide. Blue Period, by contrast, envelops the artist in cool monochrome blue, her expressive gestures – biting her fingernails, touching her lips, gazing with oscillating detachment – rendering visible a choreography of discomfort and emotional tension. Here, blue becomes a lens for vulnerability, introspection and the intimacy of self-observation.
Originally part of her 16-channel Video Portrait Gallery (1975–2002), these works have previously been shown at institutions such as the Kunstmuseum Bern and, more recently, the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania (2015). At Saatchi Yates, however, the exhibition’s scale – walls entirely covered with stills – reconfigures the experience. Visitors are invited to move slowly, to linger frame by frame and to engage with performance in a way that is both meditative and confrontational. It is a reminder that Abramović’s work is as much about the act of looking as it is about the act of performing.
Abramović’s influence on subsequent generations of artists is immeasurable. Contemporary performance practitioners, especially women, have cited her as a guiding force. Artists such as Tania Bruguera, whose politically charged performances interrogate power and control, echo Abramović’s fearless engagement with the audience. Marina Corsini, known for her durational works exploring presence and identity, channels Abramović’s meticulous attention to the physical and temporal constraints of performance. Shirin Neshat’s haunting explorations of gender, society and the gaze are infused with the same uncompromising intensity that defines Abramović’s oeuvre. These artists and countless others owe a debt to Abramović’s pioneering insistence that art can be lived, experienced and felt on the most corporeal level.
Returning to the Saatchi Yates exhibition, the works confront themes of endurance, temporality and the charged symbolism of colour. The transformation from moving image to stills compels a slower, more intimate engagement, inviting reflection on the gestures, emotions and tensions that define Abramović’s practice. Viewers can expect a rare communion with the artist’s inner world – an encounter that is simultaneously visual, emotional and conceptual. Each frame functions as both documentation and autonomous artwork, and the opportunity to acquire individual stills further democratizes the experience, allowing the audience to participate in Abramović’s experimentation with presence, time and expression.
In a cultural moment increasingly dominated by rapid consumption and fleeting digital engagement, Abramović’s work remains a radical insistence on slowness, attention and presence. This exhibition, ambitious in scope and intimate in detail, is a testament to her enduring relevance – a reminder that performance is not simply spectacle but philosophy in action, an inquiry into the limits of the body and the depths of human empathy. Blue Period and Red Period are not only performances; they are experiences that continue to ripple through contemporary art, inspiring reflection, dialogue and artistic evolution.
Marina Abramović has consistently demanded that art be a site of radical honesty, where vulnerability is strength and endurance is revelation. Saatchi Yates’ latest presentation amplifies this ethos, transforming iconic performances into a spatial and conceptual journey that invites viewers to confront, witness and perhaps even understand the extraordinary depth of Abramović’s artistic vision. This exhibition is, in every sense, a celebration of one of the most significant artists of our time – a recognition that her work continues to shape, challenge and inspire.
Marina Abramović is at Saatchi Yates, London from 1 October to 31 October: saatchiyates.com
Words: Anna Müller
Image Credits:
1. Marina Abramović, Red.
2. Marina Abramović, Blue.
3. Marina Abramović, Red.
4. Marina Abramović, Blue.
5. Marina Abramović, Red.
