(London, Piccadilly Circus)  7 June 2022 – Marina Abramović leads an unprecedented three-month CIRCA presentation of The Hero, a global call for courageous new heroes at a pivotal moment in our collective history. Set against today’s backdrop of global instability, rising tensions and climate breakdown, the figure of a steadfast woman astride a white horse holds symbolic charge on a world stage dominated by masculine power and escalating conflict. 

Instigating an extended three-month pause throughout June, July and August, broadcasting across the CIRCA network of screens (London, Seoul, Milan, Berlin, New York and Los Angeles), Abramović invites a global audience to consider and assume new definitions of heroism.

Marina Abramović says: Our planet needs uncorrupted heroes with morality, who embody courage and bring real change. Every day in this world is a shaky, uncertain, constantly changing landscape. For CIRCA 2022, we have this white horse. This white flag. This beautiful land. We need heroes that can bring new light to illuminate us. Heroes that can inspire us to be better, and to work together, not against each other. Heroes who care.

One of Abramović’s most personal and autobiographical works made after the death of her father, who was a national hero, The Hero was originally recorded in the summer of 2001, a few weeks before the events of 9/11 shook the world and shaped the reality of the coming generation. Like Rhythm 0 (1974) and The Artist Is Present (2010), The Hero emphasises the aspect of stillness and endurance that runs like a thread through much of her work. Transcending time in a rallying, durational display from one of the world’s greatest living artists, Abramović questions whether heroism survives, and what shape or form it takes today.

In recognition of this pivotal moment, Abramović has penned The Heroes’ Manifesto, echoing her 2011 An Artist’s Life Manifesto, yet rewritten to reflect today’s urgent need for heroism over artistry. This new call to arms explores the importance to the hero’s journey of solitude, forgiveness, and recognition of one’s own mortality:

THE HERO MANIFESTO (CIRCA 20:22)

Heroes should not lie to themselves or others

Heroes should not make themselves into an idol 

Heroes should look deep inside themselves for inspiration 

The deeper they look inside themselves, the more universal they become 

Heroes are universe 

Heroes are universe 

Heroes are universe 

Heroes create their own symbols 

Symbols are the Heroes’ language 

The language must then be translated

Sometimes it is difficult to find the key 

Heroes have to understand silence 

Heroes have to create a space for silence to enter their soul 

Silence is like an island in the middle of a turbulent ocean 

Heroes must make time for the long periods of solitude 

Solitude is extremely important 

Away from home 

Away from family 

Away from friends  

Heroes should have more and more of less and less 

Heroes should have friends that lift their spirit

Heroes have to learn to forgive 

Heroes have to learn to forgive 

Heroes have to learn to forgive

Heroes have to be aware of their own mortality 

For the Heroes, it is not only important how they live their life but also how they die 

Heroes should die consciously, without anger, without fear 

Heroes should die consciously, without anger, without fear 

Heroes should die consciously, without anger, without fear

Since the beginning of her career in Belgrade during the early 1970s, Marina Abramović has pioneered performance as a visual art form. She created some of the most important early works in this practice, including Rhythm 0 (1974), in which she offered herself as an object of experimentation for the audience, as well as Rhythm 5 (1974), where she lay in the centre of a burning five-point star to the point of losing consciousness. These performances married concept with physicality, endurance with empathy, complicity with loss of control, passivity with danger. They pushed the boundaries of self- discovery, both of herself and her audience. They also marked her first engagements with time, stillness, energy, pain, and the resulting heightened consciousness generated by long durational performance.

In 2012, she founded the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI), a non-profit foundation for performance art, that focuses on performance, long durational works, and the use of the ‘Abramović Method’. MAI is a platform for immaterial and long durational work to create new possibilities for collaboration among thinkers of all fields.

Abramović was 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. In 2023, Abramović will be the first female artist to host a major solo exhibition in the Main Galleries of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Her first European retrospective ‘The Cleaner’ was presented at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden in 2017, followed by presentations at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, Denmark, Henie Onstad, Sanvika, Norway (2017), Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany (2018), Centre of Contemporary Art, Torun (2019), and concluding at the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, Serbia (2019). In 2010, Abramovic had her first major U.S. retrospective and simultaneously performed for over 700 hours in “The Artist is Present” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In 1997, Abramovic was awarded the Golden Lion Award for Best Artist for her performance Balkan Baroque at the Venice Biennale. In 2006, Abramovic received the U.S. Art Critics Association Award for Best Exhibition of Time Based Art for her performance Seven Easy Pieces at the Guggenheim in New York City. In 2008, Abramovic received the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art in Vienna. In 2011, she was awarded Honorary Royal Academician status by The Royal Academy in London. In 2013, Abramovic was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Officer for her work in Bolero, Paris. In 2014, Abramovic was named one of The 100 Most Influential People by TIME Magazine. In 2021, Abramovic was awarded the Princess de Asturias Award for the Arts, in Spain.