https://www.theartnewspaper.com/interview/marina-abramovic-sky-arts

Date confirmed 5th December 9pm GMT

Marina Abramovic TV: five-hour takeover will teach you everything you need to know about performance art

Marina Abramovic will be the first artist to take over Sky Arts, part of an ambitious new approach to the channel, which went free to air in the UK in September. Abramovic will take over the channel in December—the exact date is to be confirmed—and promises to explore performance art in its widest sense. “We developed this programme to show as much variety of material as possible over five hours,” Abramovic told The Art Newspaper. “And actually for Sky Arts to give an artist five hours to do what they want is like a revolution. I feel an incredible responsibility that it should not be the last time: we have to really work, and we have to reach as many viewers as possible—especially, we’re targeting young viewers. After the five hours of this programme, everybody will know what performance art is, I hope.”

Abramovic promises a diverse group of contributors, reflecting broad backgrounds and identities; performers from 32 countries will feature in the programme, which will mix archival footage with new live performances. Performance artists are “always at the frontier”, she says. “There's always an avant garde element in performance, they're always pushing physical and mental limits, [exploring] new ideas.” It is this radical power she hopes to explain over the course of her occupation of Sky Arts. “Whatever the situation or crisis in society, performance comes as the answer to it. And this is why performance has influenced so many other media—dance, literature, fashion, MTV, you name it. This is why, to me, as a curator of this programme [it was important] to show how performance is everywhere, in so many other parts of culture.”