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ABSTRACT
The aim of this article is to illustrate through an empirical case how art in a secular age can function as a spiritual-but-non-religious (SBNR) environment for both artists and art followers. It examines contemporary performance artist Marina Abramović as an example of a post-modern spiritual figure, rooted in the artworld. Her relevance for a secular age is as a contemporary artist who has developed her own brand of art-based spirituality with no theological nor religious content whatsoever. Although nonreligious, she does not conform to a materialistic worldview. She holds many so-called ‘New Age’ beliefs which place her among the growing SBNR demographic. She has developed her own ‘spiritual’ method to teach people beyond the ‘elitist’ artworld, and has created the immaterial Marina Abramović Institute (MAI) to carry on her legacy. Arguably, therefore, she has effectively transformed herself into a ‘spiritual’ teacher. Drawing on Denita Benyshek’s construct of artist-shaman, scientific explanations about the relieving of pain, and Victor Turner’s concept of spontaneous communitas, the article concludes that Abramović is a nonreligious spiritual charismatic figure who is generating countercultural communitas through her performances, her institute and her teachings, providing an empirical demonstration that art can indeed function as a spiritual but not religious context.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Frank Uwe Laysiepen, aka Ulay, was a German performance artist whom Abramović met in Amsterdam.
2 Marina had three abortions (2016, 52).
3 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/oct/07/marina-abramovic-im-an-artist-not-a-satanist. Published October 7, 2020. (Accessed 29.09.22).
4 See comment thread by @Truth Seeker on her YouTube TED talk video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4so_Z9a_u0 (Accessed 21.11.22). It received 3,300 ‘likes’ and 141 replies, which is highly unusual.
5 Unable to meet the cost of a building, she decided that, just as her performance art is immaterial, so would be her institute. Instead of a physical place, it would exist as an idea. It moves to wherever she is working. Thus, her MAI is a conceptual legacy, rather than a material one.
6 Available at https://hirshhorn.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/An-Artists-Life-Manifesto.pdf (Accessed 07.04.2022).
7 Elkins eventually admitted that it is mostly Christianity which is excluded (Citation2004).
8 Available at https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/01/new-age-beliefs-common-among-both-religious-and-nonreligious-americans/. Published October 1, 2018. (Accessed 29.09.22).
9 Stépanoff reported that ‘unlike urban Tuvan intellectuals, who consider shamans as a product of the ‘Tuvan cultural heritage’, herdsmen expected that shamans would appear in France as well as in Tuva. … For them, the birth of shamans was a phenomenon obviously independent from cultural diversity and historical change’ (Citation2009, 298).
10 For this reason, she excluded Jim Morrison from her subset despite his self-designation as shaman.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Annalisa Burello
Annalisa Burello is a visual artist and a photographer. She has also attained an MSc in Economics at Bocconi University, Italy, and Anthropology of Religion at the London School of Economics, UK. Currently, she is researching as an independent scholar the connection between art and spirituality in the contemporary artworld, and the spiritual role of art in a secularised society.