Author(s)

Lília Simões, Maria Consuêlo Passos

Department of Postgraduate in Clinical Psychology, Pontifical Catholic University of Pernambuco, Curitiba, Brazil.

Based on issues raised by the autobiographical memoirs of the performing artist Marina Abramovic, this article seeks to discuss the transformative potential of her work, based on the analysis of six selected performances in which the artist uses the body as an object of her art, exploring as a means of expression of physical limits, exhaustion of the mind and relationship with the public. Our objective is to investigate how the artist appropriates the performance space to discuss through psychoanalytic theory the ritualistic and transformative dimension of her work. Using the field concepts of Antonino Ferro and transformational object of Cristopher Bollas. Finally we propose an analogy between the space of performance as the analytical field, the performance and the relationship with the public proposing a transformative aesthetic experience.

Art, Performance, Field, Transformational, Psychoanalysis

Simões, L. and Passos, M. (2018) The Performance Art of Marina Abramovic as a Transformational Experience. Psychology, 9, 1329-1339. doi: 10.4236/psych.2018.96081.