Renowned artist searching for family and home.
Marina Abramović emigrated to America at the age of 55, finding a new home there as well as establishing an institute under her own name, which transfers the intangible art of performance to a new generation and prepares re-performers—people who repeat Abramović’s famous actions after passing a thorough selection. Serbian documentary filmmaker Boris Miljkovic records the preparation of Marina Abramovich and her “children” for The Cleaner, a traveling retrospective show that is to end in Belgrade, the artist’s hometown.
Throughout the film, Abramović talks about growing up in Soviet Yugoslavia under the strict control of relatives. The girl who would perform the most dangerous performances was awaited at home by her mother, who would throw an ashtray at her if she disgraced the family's honor. Having restored relations with her family many years on, Abramović does not stop looking for a new one, however. This search is reflected in the trope of a truck packed with artworks for the retrospective that travels across Eastern Europe.
Marina Abramović’s fans will encounter familiar facts from her biography, known from her Walk Through Walls: A Memoir (2016) and the documentary The Artist Is Present (2012). Homecoming also includes footage of her notable performances, including House with the Ocean View, during which she lived and fasted for twelve days in three hanging rooms at MoMA New York, and Balkan Baroque—the washing of a pile of bloody cow bones in memory of the Yugoslav War victims, exhibited at the Venice Biennale.
The film will be screened in English and Serbian with Russian subtitles.
Homecoming: Marina Abramović and Her Children
Dir. Boris Miljkovic
Serbia, 2020. 84 min. 18+