From Ecstasy to Chaos: The Shocking Turn in the Artist’s Six-Hour Prostitution Experiment

So picture this: Marina Abramovic, the unyielding queen of boundary-pushing performance art, decides to swap her paintbrush for a very different kind of spotlight — the infamous red light district of Amsterdam. Yep, you read that right. At 78, this Serbian firecracker boldly traded places with a seasoned prostitute for a daring exhibition called ‘Role Exchange.’ Spoiler alert: Despite the avant-garde bravado and a healthy dose of fearless artistry, Marina later dubbed the whole escapade a “disaster.” Intrigued? Who knew that stepping into the shoes of a sex worker could be such a tough gig — especially when the clientele isn’t exactly knocking down the door! This isn’t just art; it’s a deep dive into fear, societal roles, and yes, a reality check served cold. Ready to peek behind the curtain of one of the most eyebrow-raising performances in art history? LEARN MORE.

An unconventional artist who moonlighted as a prostitute for a performative piece later described the experience as a ‘disaster.’

Marina Abramovic is well known for being a creative who pushes the boundaries – as a quick look at her catalogue of conceptual compositions will tell you.

The Serbian star, 78, previously gave members of the public free rein over her body for six hours for her shocking ‘Rhythm 0’ production, allowing spectators to take their pick from 72 objects and use them in any way they desired.

Her ‘Seedbed’ exhibition delivered a similar amount of shock value, as it involved Abramovic masturbating non-stop, while fantasies were blasted through a speaker.

Whether this sort of thing is up your street or not, I think we can all agree that the artist goes the extra mile when it comes to putting on a show to remember.

Abramovic definitely has the clout to dub herself the ‘grandmother of performance art‘ after more than 50 years in the game.

But even as a newcomer, she wasn’t scared to throw herself right into the deep end – as she boldly traded places with a prostitute in Amsterdam’s infamous red light district for the sake of her art.

Despite the success of the piece, aptly titled ‘Role Exchange’, Abramovic reckons it was something of a ‘disaster’ in hindsight.

Who is Marina Abramovic?

The artist is known for her unique and eyebrow-raising performative pieces (TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP via Getty Images)

The source of Abramovic’s audacious artwork is largely attributed to her strict upbringing by both her Montenegrin parents and her grandparents.

She lived with the latter until she was six-years-old, while her mother and father fought for the communist partisans during WWII and became national heroes in Belgrade, according to The Guardian.

“The brother of my grandfather was the patriarch of the Orthodox Church and revered as a saint,” Abramovic previously explained. “So everything in my childhood is about total sacrifice, whether to religion or to communism.

“This is what is engraved on me. This is why I have this insane willpower.”

She enjoyed painting as a youngster and ended up finding solace in creating art to escape the ‘complete military-style control’ her mother lorded over her and her brother.

Abramovic previously said: “I was not allowed to leave the house after 10 o’clock at night until I was 29 years old… All the performances in Yugoslavia I did before 10 o’clock in the evening, because I had to be home then.

“It’s completely insane, but all of my cutting myself, whipping myself, burning myself, almost losing my life in ‘The Firestar’ – everything was done before 10 in the evening.”

But after moving to Amsterdam in 1975, she was finally able to spread her wings – and ‘Role Exchange’ gave her quite the introduction to what unfolds in the world after dark.

What was ‘Role Exchange’?

Abramovic traded places with a prostitute in Amsterdam for ‘Role Exchange’ (Marina Abramović)

Role Exchange was an exhibition which did what it said on the tin – Abramovic swapped places with a prostitute, exchanging roles to see how the other half live.

When she touched down in the capital of the Netherlands and stumbled into the red light district, she was wowed by the women in the windows.

The artist explained that she considered sex workers ‘the lowest thing to be’ due to her upbringing, saying that her mother would ‘just die’ if she found out she had dabbled in it.

Abramovic previously stated that fear was the main motivator for Role Exchange, as well as her other exhibitions – as she ‘likes to do things that are most difficult, the things I’m afraid of.’

She felt ‘terrified’ by the prospect of stepping into the shoes of a prostitute, which is ultimately why she was so determined to perform the piece.

While she put herself on display in the red light district, the escort instead assumed Abramovic’s role and attended the opening of an exhibit in Amsterdam’s De Appel Museum.

Both of the women’s experiences were both recorded on separate 16mm cameras, before being displayed at the aforementioned museum at a later date.

Why was Role Exchange a ‘disaster’?

She didn’t get a lot of punters during the six hour exhibition, though (Stefano Guidi/Getty Images)

As she’d been practicing art for ten years at this point in time, Abramovic wanted to find someone with equivalent experience as a lady of the night.

In an interview detailing the idea behind Role Exchange, she explained: “So, I come to Amsterdam and what I see is all this red district with the prostitutes sitting in the window.

“I looked for the prostitute [that had been working for] 12 years and I changed roles with her. She comes to the gallery to be me and I go to the window to be her.”

The only stipulation the sex worker gave Abramovic was to not dip below her usual price, warning that it would spoil her business.

“So I had the two customers; one asked about her, and the second one didn’t want to pay the price,” Abramović wrote on her website.

Hence why the artist looks back on Role Exchange as a ‘disaster’…as she didn’t get a lot of punters during the six-hour performance piece.

The aim of the exhibition wasn’t for Abramovic to actually facilitate the desires of those in search of a womanly touch, though – it was instead supposed to challenge societal roles and the value which people often presume is dictated by professions.

What did the prostitute say to her?

When the six hours was up, the prostitute wasn’t exactly eager to sign Abramovic up as her apprentice.

According to the artist, the red light district regular firmly told her that she would ‘die as a prostitute’ due to her apparent lack of ‘talent’ when assuming the role of a sex worker.

Recalling the events of Role Exchange in a post on her website, Abramovic said: “She said to me that I would starve if I will be prostitute because I don’t have any talent for that role.”

Cold.