Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has allegedly asked occult “Spirit Cooking” performance artist Marina Abramović to serve as an ambassador for his country, according to a report from London’s Daily Telegraph.
Ahead of debuting her first solo exhibition in Britain, the controversial 76-year-old Serbian claimed that President Zelensky has asked her to become an ambassador for Ukraine and to help the country rebuild its school system.
In comments reported by The Telegraph, Abramović said: “I have been invited by Zelensky to be an ambassador of Ukraine, to help the children affected by rebuilding schools and such.”
The Serbian artist went on to claim that she has also been invited to join the board of the Babyn Yar organisation to help protect the Holocaust memorial centre for Jews killed by Nazis in Ukraine, which was damaged in a Russian missile attack shortly following last year’s invasion of the country.
Abramović, an ardent opponent of Vladimir Putin, has previously worked in Ukraine, installing the ‘Crystal Wall of Crying‘ at the Babyn Yar centre just months prior to the invasion. Visitors to the forty-metre-long structure are encouraged to “interact with the crystals and meditate”. Her latest show in London will reportedly ask attendees to squeeze two naked models in order to enter.
Born to a pair of Yugoslavian communist government officials, Marina Abramović previously courted political controversy after WikiLeaks revealed that Tony Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman John Podesta, had invited his longtime Washington insider brother to a “Spirit Cooking dinner” at Abramović’s home in 2015.
Spirit Cooking, 2000, is the name of the work of art inscribed with pig’s blood, which the Yugoslavian artist Marina Abramovic presented on January 20, 2000 at the Kunstverein Hannover. The performance artist has been drawing attention to herself with spectacular performances since the 1970s. (Photo by Wolfgang Weihs/picture alliance via Getty Images)
In 1996, the occult Serbian artist produced a cookbook for spirit cooking, which included “aphrodisiac recipes” such as mixing “fresh breast milk with fresh sperm milk” to be consumed on “earthquake nights”. Meanwhile, another recipe calls for “fresh morning urine”. The recipes were claimed to serve as “evocative instructions for actions or thoughts.”
In response to the controversy surrounding the spirit cooking dinner, Abramović claimed: “It was actually just a normal menu, which I call spirit cooking. There was no blood, no anything else. We just call things funny names, that’s all.”
She went on to deny that she is a Satanist, saying: “My work is really more about spirituality and not anything else.”
LOS ANGELES, CA – NOVEMBER 12: Performance artist Marina Abramovic and singer Deborah Harry of “Blondie” perform onstage at the 2011 MOCA Gala, An Artist’s Life Manifesto, Directed by Marina Abramovic at MOCA Grand Avenue on November 12, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for MOCA)
However, Abramović has claimed in the past to have mystical clairvoyant powers which enable her to foresee world events before they happen, writing in her memoir Walking Through Walls: “I dreamed of an earthquake in Italy: 48 hours later, there was an earthquake in southern Italy. I had a vision of someone shooting the Pope: 48 hours later, someone tried to shoot Pope John Paul II.”
In addition to mixing in political circles, Abramović has also brushed elbows with some of the elites in the entertainment industry, including pop singer Lady Gaga, who collaborated with the Serbian artist on a 2010 video. Dubbed “The Abramovic Method Practiced by Lady Gaga,” the lewd video features the Bad Romance singer fully nude while performing a monotone chant and at one point wearing what appear to be yellow horns emanating from her eyes.
