The night began with the artist occupying a stage in the Aviva lobby, reading the audience into the performance, a cheat sheet for those who didn’t spring for the cost of the program despite the attendees picking bare the gift shop walls of assorted merch—aprons, throw pillows—that didn’t always give the correct impression of a show about Balkan folklore nor embody its intended themes. “She doesn’t understand shit about Balkan and she is confused,” Abramovic said of the character, comic relief breaking up the trauma of a nearby grieving bride tasked to marry a dead groom, a mourning dance at times set to opera and instruments that proves the most emotionally and physically taxing of the thirteen performances. When I first saw the animations in Balkan Erotic Epic, I immediately thought it a missed opportunity for Abramovic to partner with Four Chambers, U.K. porn performer, producer, director and sex worker advocate Vex Ashley’s decade-old video project that straddles art porn with A24 aesthetics, prioritizes female empowerment and has on occasion been more forthright in pushing the boundaries between sex and maternity than Abramovic’s Freudian wish fulfillment, an artist statement-cum-fetish to unburden herself of some childhood longing to glimpse her parents through a crack in the bedroom door.
Author: Adam Robb, Adam Robb
Published at: 2025-11-25 23:37:26
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