by Carolin Kralapp // Apr. 28, 2026
This article is part of our feature topic Abjection.
For the first time since the 1990s, Berlin is hosting a major exhibition by Marina Abramović, an artist who needs no introduction. Through her performance art, she has earned her place in the art world’s pantheon, helped establish the genre itself and brought it to institutions worldwide. Entitled ‘Balkan Erotic Epic,’ the exhibition revolves around the themes of rituals, myths, eroticism, death and the Balkans. Visitors are confronted with many naked bodies, erect penises, vulvas and breasts. Anyone familiar with Abramović’s work probably won’t be shocked, yet the exhibition’s abject qualities still offer room for surprise.
Marina Abramović: ‘Balkan Erotic Epic,’ multi-channel video installation, 2005, Serbien // © Marina Abramović, courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026
‘Balkan Erotic Epic’ is based on the artist’s central thesis that all energy in our bodies is sexual energy. If this energy is suppressed, it can give rise to negative feelings and aggression, which may manifest as harmful actions. However, if we embrace it, it can become a driving force, unleashing positive and creative energies. The exhibition explores how one might engage with this sexual energy. Geographically, it focuses on the Balkans, the region of Abramović’s origin, and the historical narratives that have shaped the area. It links her early works from the 1970s, such as ‘Lips of Thomas’ and ‘Dragon Heads I,’ with her ‘Balkan Erotic Epic’ series, begun in 2005 and continued in 2025, two decades later. The exhibition also features several live performances staged daily during opening hours, including a revival of ‘Nude with Skeleton.’
Marina Abramović: ‘Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition,’ installation view, Gropius Bau, 2026 // © Gropius Bau, photo by Rosa Merk
The show begins in Gropius Bau’s atrium with installations and a new, large-scale video work. Titled ‘Tito’s Funeral,’ this piece revisits the funeral of Josip Broz Tito, the Yugoslavian communist leader and president, which was broadcast worldwide in 1980 and triggered a huge wave of public mourning. In the video, women dressed in black are lined up and beating their chests, creating a trance-like state that sets the mood for the rest of the exhibition. The video work hints at Abramović’s approach and working method: genuine experiences can only be had if one engages with them over a long period of time. In order to achieve a state in which mind and body seem to detach from one another, it is necessary to surrender oneself and one’s body to the circumstances. This concept is something with which Abramović identifies in rituals and in her performances.
Marina Abramović: ‘Portrait with Tito,’ 2004 // © Marina Abramović, courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026, photo by Paolo Canevari
In her durational method, this prolonged submission takes both performer and viewer beyond their limits into a zone of excess, where discomfort, exposure and repetition force a confrontation with the abject. In this sense, abjection becomes a useful lens through which to read the show as a whole: in the raw, ritualistic staging of the body, in gestures of striking, massaging and lamenting, and in the persistent intertwining of eroticism and death. This is evident in both her early works and her more recent pieces. With ‘Tito’s Funeral,’ we are given a crucial initial indication of what is of great significance in this show: the collective and the community.
Marina Abramović: ‘Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition,’ installation view, Gropius Bau, 2026 // © Gropius Bau, photo by Rosa Merk
Visitors can wander through the artist’s extensive body of work, ranging from walk-in installations featuring oversized penises to cemetery landscapes. Historical and contemporary pieces alternate, interwoven with experiences, rituals and humorous and explicit elements. What is truly fascinating about the exhibition is that Abramović reflects on a career spanning over half a century and, at almost 80 years of age, she is devoting herself so intensely to the theme of eroticism. Women’s sexuality later in life is an under-treated topic, and popular culture often de-sexualizes elderly women’s bodies. Abramović attributes her continued interest in eroticism to her late loss of virginity, and her strict and conservative upbringing in former Yugoslavia (only moving out of her mother’s house at 29), self-doubt about her appearance, rejecting her body and her feelings towards her former partner and fellow performer, Ulay. She concludes that, for her, an exhibition like this could only be staged now and would not have been possible before.
Marina Abramović: ‘Nude with Skeleton,’ performance documentation, Marina Abramović: ‘Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition,’ Gropius Bau, 2026, Berlin // © Marina Abramović, courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives / Gropius Bau, photo by Rosa Merk
Abramović is an artist who continues to provoke and push boundaries by working with powerful symbols. This is precisely what gives her work its impact. While what she does—such as placing naked bodies next to skeletons in a cemetery—may seem jarring at first, it is never intended merely to shock. Instead, Abramović explores the body as a site of desire, vulnerability, grief and transience. By speaking openly about sexuality, she encourages us to engage with our own bodies and desires, pushing beyond was is socially prescribed. The fact that some may be offended ultimately only demonstrates how necessary this grand stage is. Abramović no longer has anything to prove; she has attained art historical canonization. Yet her work remains provocative, humorous, self-determined and marked by an abject excess that sustains its enduring relevance.
Exhibition Info
Gropius Bau
Marina Abramović: ‘Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition’
Curated by Agnes Gryczkowska & Jenny Schlenzka
Exhibition: Apr. 15–Aug. 23, 2026
berlinerfestspiele.de
Niederkirchnerstraße 7, 10963 Berlin, click here for map
