Marina Abramović (b. 1946, Belgrade) is widely regarded as the most significant performance artist of her generation. Working since the early 1970s, she has used her own body as both subject and medium in works exploring endurance, presence, and the relationship between artist and audience — from her early Rhythm pieces to her 1988 collaboration with Ulay, The Lovers, walking the Great Wall of China from opposite ends. Her 2010 MoMA retrospective, The Artist Is Present, drew record crowds and brought performance art into the mainstream of contemporary museum practice. In 2007 she founded the Marina Abramović Institute to preserve and advance time-based and immaterial art forms. Her honors include the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale and the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts. In 2026 the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice mounted a major retrospective of her work.