Marina Abramović for TED

9 December 2015

"Now... let's go back in time. It's 1974. There is the gallery somewhere in the world, and there is a young girl, age 23, standing in the middle of the space. In the front of her is a table. On the table there are 76 objects for pleasure and for pain. Some of the objects are a glass of water, a coat, a shoe, a rose. But also the knife, the razor blade, the hammer and the pistol with one bullet. There are instructions which say, "I'm an object. You can use everything on the table on me. I'm taking all responsibility – even killing me. And the time is six hours..."

Excerpt from Marina Abramović's talk on TED about her groundbreaking work 'The Artist is Present'.

Click here to listen.