It seems it is the year of Marina Abramović. The 76 year old conceptual and performative artist has had a run of attention-grabbing events in the UK.

First there was her retrospective at the Royal Academy – the first EVER of a female artist (a shameful statistic from the arts establishment), then wowing audiences on stage at the Coliseum in London with her Seven Deaths of Maria Callas, a celebration to mark the centenary of the birth of the renowned opera singer on an international run of the world’s major cities.

And now, Abramović has been recognised as a Woman Artist of the Year by Harpers Bazaar magazine.

It’s fantastic to see her being recognised as in her prime, while in her seventies. It may be the world playing catch up, but let’s celebrate this extraordinary performer is now fully seen.

Describing herself as the ‘grandmother of performance art’, she has been a prolific artist for 50 years, consistently pushing boundaries. She has explored body art, endurance art, the relationship between the performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. She was born in Belgrade when it was part of the former Yugoslavia and grew up under communism.

artist Marina Abramović Royal Academy