Marina Abramović will become the first living woman artist to receive a major exhibition at the Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia. Marina Abramović: Transforming Energy opens on May 6 during the 61st Venice Biennale Arte and runs until October 19. The exhibition coincides with Abramović’s 80th birthday and situates her pioneering practice within the institution’s permanent collection and temporary spaces, a first in the museum’s history. Shai Baitel, Artistic Director of the Modern Art Museum Shanghai, curates the exhibition in close collaboration with Abramović.
Transforming Energy presents a dialogue between Renaissance masterpieces and Abramović’s performance art. Visitors will encounter interactive Transitory Objects, including stone beds and crystal-embedded structures that activate what the artist describes as “energy transmission.” Iconic works such as Imponderabilia (1977), Rhythm 0 (1974), Light/Dark (1977), Balkan Baroque (1997), and Carrying the Skeleton (2008) appear alongside early performance projections and new works created for the exhibition. These pieces underscore her decades-long focus on endurance, vulnerability, and transformation.
A centerpiece of the show is Pietà (with Ulay) (1983), presented in dialogue with Titian’s unfinished Pietà (1575–76), completed by Palma Giovane. On the 450th anniversary of Titian’s painting, this pairing reframes Renaissance archetypes of grief and transcendence through a contemporary lens, reaffirming the body as a site of suffering and elevation.
Abramović’s use of natural materials matches Venice’s cultural history. Quartz, amethyst, and other crystals echo the city’s Renaissance mosaics and its tradition of transforming raw matter into metaphysical form. By positioning the visitor’s body as central to the experience, the exhibition calls for participation rather than passive viewing, creating the possibility of inner change through duration and presence.
Reflecting on her lifelong connection to Venice, Abramović recalled her first Biennale visit at 14: “We travelled by train from Belgrade and as I stepped out of the station and saw Venice for the first time, I began to cry. It was so incredibly beautiful – unlike anything I had ever seen.” She described the honor of returning for her 80th birthday: “to become the first woman artist to present an exhibition across the Gallerie dell’Accademia, including its contemporary collection, with Transforming Energy.”
Institutional voices echo the significance of the exhibition. Giulio Manieri Elia, Director of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, emphasized the museum’s ongoing dialogue between ancient and modern art, recalling past projects with Mario Mertz, Philip Guston, Georg Baselitz, Anish Kapoor, and Willem De Kooning. Italy’s Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli praised Abramović as a pioneer of performance art and announced that the exhibition will also travel to Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. Curator Shai Baitel described the exhibition as a transformative moment for museums, integrating Abramović’s practice with Venice’s cultural patrimony.
Organized in collaboration with the Marina Abramović Institute and the Modern Art Museum Shanghai, Transforming Energy positions Abramović’s work within Venice’s historic context while celebrating a career that has defined performance art for half a century.
Read DSCENE Magazine’s exclusive interview with Marina Abramovic HERE.
