What is Marina Abramović best known for?

A still from Marina Abramović's Seven Deaths.

A close-up shows a woman with smeared red lipstick holding a large patterned snake wrapped tightly around her neck and shoulders, her expression tense and intimate.

Marina Abramović—unilaterally considered a pioneer of performance art—was still having breakfast in the Austrian Alps when we spoke over Zoom. She was staying there in anticipation of traveling to Venice, where her exhibition “Transforming Energy” (May 6-October 18, 2026) will make her the first living woman to have an exhibition at the Galleria dell’Accademia di Venezia

What is Marina Abramović best known for?