Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition

One of the most influential performance artists of all time, Marina Abramović presents Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition at Gropius Bau in spring 2026. The show traces 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 to explore eroticism as an offering that binds life and death, the self and the cosmos. It highlights the artist’s performances not merely as acts of personal endurance, but as imagined rituals that reposition the erotic body as carrier of spiritual, political and ecological meaning. 

Celebrating their 75thanniversary, the Berliner Festspiele unfold Balkan Erotic Epic in two parts: following the exhibition at Gropius Bau, the new multi-hour theatre production BalkanErotic Epic. The Stage Version will open the Performing Arts Season in the Haus der Berliner Festspiele in October 2026.

Curated by Agnes Gryczkowska, curator and musician, and Jenny Schlenzka, Director, Gropius Bau, with Elena Franziska Setzer, Assistant Curator, Gropius Bau, and Savannah Thümler, Curatorial Assistant, Gropius Bau

A selection of press images is available for media coverage of Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition. Please contact presse@gropiusbau.de to request the login data to download high res press images.

The images can be downloaded and used free of charge prior to and during the exhibition period. Please note that images may not be cropped, overprinted or modified. We look forward to receiving any digital or hardcopy samples of publications.

Please forward or send them to the following address:

Gropius Bau
Birgit Schapow / Press Office
Niederkirchnerstraße 7
10963 Berlin
presse@gropiusbau.de