Marina Abramović has returned to Venice with Transforming Energy, a landmark exhibition at Gallerie dell’Accademia that positions her performance practice within the historical framework of Renaissance art. Running through October 19, the exhibition marks the museum’s first major presentation dedicated to a living woman artist, reinforcing Abramović’s long-standing connection to Venice and the Biennale.
The artist first encountered Venice as a teenager during a visit to the Biennale, an experience that shaped her early artistic ambitions. Decades later, she became the first woman to receive the Golden Lion at the 1997 Venice Biennale for “Balkan Baroque,” the endurance-based performance that confronted war, violence, and collective memory through the repetitive act of cleaning bloodied animal bones.
Now approaching her 80th year, Abramović returns with an exhibition curated by Shai Baitel that places her work in direct conversation with historical masterworks. Accordingly, Transforming Energy examines themes that have defined her practice for more than five decades, including endurance, ritual, grief, participation, and spiritual transformation.
Performance Art Meets Renaissance Painting
One of the exhibition’s central interventions stages Abramović’s “Pietá (with Ulay)” (1983) alongside Titian’s 16th-century painting of the same subject. Through this juxtaposition, the exhibition creates a cross-century dialogue between performance art and Renaissance religious imagery, emphasizing shared explorations of suffering, transcendence and the human body.
In addition, the exhibition revisits several of Abramović’s most influential works. “Rhythm 0” (1974), the radical participatory performance that allowed audiences to interact freely with the artist using a table of objects, appears alongside documentation and installations related to “Balkan Baroque” (1997). New works produced specifically for the exhibition further expand these investigations into vulnerability and transformation.
Abramović’s long-running interest in audience participation also emerges through “Transitory Objects,” an interactive installation featuring stone and crystal structures designed for physical engagement. Visitors are invited to lie down, stand, or sit on the sculptural forms as part of what the artist describes as “energy transmissions.”
Reimagining the Museum Experience
The exhibition extends beyond the artworks themselves to reshape the institution’s atmosphere. According to museum director Giulio Manieri Elia, the galleries have been redesigned to encourage contemplation and sensory withdrawal from daily life.
As he stated in a recent interview, the space itself has been recalibrated to, in true Abramović fashion, “create an atmosphere that brings us closer to meditation and away from everyday life.”
Consequently, Transforming Energy positions performance art not as documentation of past actions, but as an active encounter unfolding within the architectural and historical context of Venice itself. By placing Abramović’s works beside Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition also reinforces the growing institutional recognition of performance art as a central discipline within contemporary art history.
Transforming Energy remains on view at Gallerie dell’Accademia through October 19, 2026.