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Marina Abramovic Launches ‘The Hero’ NFT On The Tezos Blockchain

Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic is a World-renowned conceptual and performance artist and her work has had a focus on ‘…body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind.’ 

She began her career in Belgrade during the early 1970s and has since performed many noticeable pieces which have attracted the interest of mainstream media and brought worldwide attention to many topics.

In 2007, she founded the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI), which is a non-profit foundation for performance art.

She is considered ‘…one of the first performance artists to become formally accepted by the institutional museum world with major solo shows taking place throughout Europe and the US over a period of more than 25 years.’

She has been featured in well-known art museums and galleries including Tate, Lisson, Serpentine, and the Guggenheim Museum to name just some.

The Hero

‘The Hero’ is one of Marina Abramovic’s most personal works yet and is an autobiographical work made after the death of her father, who was a national hero.

In the piece Abramović questions ‘whether heroism survives, and what shape or form it takes today.’

The piece which has been created in collaboration with CIRCA art, is presented in the form of a video, and was originally recorded in 2001 in Spain.

The artwork is set to be shown in six well-known worldwide locations, every day for three months from June 13th-August 13th:

20:22 BST – London, Piccadilly Lights20:22 CET – Berlin, Limes, Kurfürstendamm20:22 PST – Los Angeles, Pendry West Hollywood20:22 UTC – Milan, Piazzale Cadorna20:22 EST – New York, Times Square20:22 KST – Seoul, COEX K-Pop Square

You can watch a recording of the video being played at Piccadilly Circus in London On the Marina Abramovic Institute Instragram account here.

Accompanying the video is a manifesto, written to reflect today’s urgent need for heroism over artistry.

Marina Abramovic is due to announce details of her inaugural NFT during a conversation with CIRCA Artistic Director, Josef O’Connor, at Art Basel on 18 June.

The Hero Tezos NFT

‘The Hero’ video has been turned into an NFT using the environmentally friendly Tezos blockchain, which was thought to be a key decision for the choice.

Diane Drubay, Arts & Culture in the Tezos ecosystem, TZ Connect, said on the NFT: 

“NFTs are the ideal medium to share Marina Abramović’s and CIRCA’s view of a new paradigm through innovative ways of thinking and experiencing art.

We are thrilled to witness Marina Abramović’s work brought to life for the first time in Web3 on Tezos.

Abramović’s creation The Hero is perfectly at home in the thriving and diverse Tezos Art community.”

On the decision to choose the Tezos blockchain Marina Abramovic told Art News in an email interview that:

‘… it is important to me that these NFTs were affordable and environmentally-friendly. The idea I’ve developed with CIRCA is a performance hosted on the Tezos blockchain.

Like all of my previous performances, there is an element of risk involved and that risk centers around the audience.

Experimenting means going into territory where you’ve never been, where failure is very possible. How can you know you’re going to succeed?

Having the courage to face the unknown is so important. An artist should never stop taking risks, even when they are 75.’