Exhibition
Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition
Marina Abramović, Women Massaging Breasts I from the series Balkan Erotic Epic, C-Print, 2005, Serbia © Marina Abramović, Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026
Mon, Wed, Thu, Fri 12:00–19:00
Sat, Sun 10:00–19:00
Tue closed
Recommended for ages 16 and over
15 / reduced 10
Marina Abramović, one of the most influential contemporary artists, presents Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition at Gropius Bau, marking her first major solo show in Berlin since the 1990s. The exhibition brings together historical and new works by the performance artist, tracing her ongoing engagement with ritual, eroticism, death and the body as a site of political resistance.
Women beat their chests and massage their breasts in lamentation, while a living naked body lies entwined with a skeleton: drawing on the folklore of Abramović’s native Balkans, the exhibition weaves together filmic and sculptural installations with live performance. Interspersed with moments of humorous exaggeration, the exhibition reimagines the Balkans as a place where erotic energy functions as a means for communities to confront death, ensure fertility and restore balance within the natural world. Here, the erotic emerges as a vital force through which boundaries between life and death, individual and collective, begin to dissolve.
Celebrating their 75th birthday, the Berliner Festspiele unfold Balkan Erotic Epic in two parts: following the exhibition at Gropius Bau, Balkan Erotic Epic. The Stage Version, a new multi-hour theatre production, will open the Performing Arts Season in the Haus der Berliner Festspiele in October 2026.
“All energy we have in our body is sexual energy. We can use it for creativity, for spiritual matters – or it becomes aggression, war, anger.”
— Marina Abramović
Content Note: The exhibition addresses events of war and racist violence and includes depictions of self‑harm and sexually explicit acts.
Curated by Agnes Gryczkowska, curator and writer, and Jenny Schlenzka, Director, Gropius Bau, with Elena Franziska Setzer, Assistant Curator, Gropius Bau, and Savannah Thümler, Curatorial Assistant, Gropius Bau
Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition is funded by
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Partners: Wall BouvetLadubay Dussmann
Media partners: Monopol BerlinArt Link Madame Fräulein H.O.M.E. Flair FluxFM Tagesspiegel