Marina Abramovic, born in 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, is without question one of the seminal artists of our time. She was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 1997 Venice Biennale for her extraordinary video installation/performance piece Balkan Baroque. Her work is included in many major public collections worldwide including: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland; the Van AbbeMuseum, Eindhoven, Holland; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; and the Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern Switzerland. Recent solo exhibitions have included: Seven Easy Pieces, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Star, Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, Japan; Marina Abramovic: The Hero, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Marking the Territory, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; The Hunt, Center for Contemporary Art Kitakyushu, Kitakyushu, Japan; Spirit Houses, Bourganeuf, France; Marina Abramovic, Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como, Italy, and Public Body – Artist Body, The Kunstverein Hannover, Germany. Abramovic has a substantial forthcoming retrospective in 2008 at the Kunst und Ausstellunghalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany.