Agnes Gryczkowska Discusses Curating Marina Abramović’s New Berlin Mega Show
Marina Abramović opened her first solo presentation in Berlin since the 1990s with “Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition” at Gropius Bau, running through August 23. Co-curated by Agnes Gryczkowska and Gropius Bau director Jenny Schlenzka, the show combines historical and recent works across film, installation, sculpture, and live action to examine ritual, eroticism, death, and the body in Balkan folklore and Abramović’s performance practice. At the opening, Abramović’s video Tito’s Funeral (2025) played on a large screen while singer Svetlana Spajić performed live and a brass band processed through the space. Gryczkowska described the exhibition as expanding Abramović’s earlier endurance works such as Rhythm 5 (1974) and Lips of Thomas (1975/2005) from a solitary body to a collective, ritualized experience.
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This story was covered in Restitution Tangles, Warped Art Routes, Museum Reboots