Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition

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.

In response to the high demand, we are extending the runtime of the exhibition Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition by one week until 30 August 2026.

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.