Artist who had nine orgasms in public for performance made honest admission after becoming prostitute for six hours

A 79-year-old performance artist who once had nine public orgasms has opened up about being a prostitute for six hours as part of a piece called 'Role Exchange'.

Marina Abramović has been the subject of a number of controversial performances and exhibits over her five decades in the industry, pushing the boundaries of conceptual artistry.

Abramović made a name for herself throughout the 1970s with performances across the US and Europe, and of course, the piece she is best known for is 'Rhythm 0'.

The performance tested her own will as well as the self control of the onlooking audience, as they were allowed to do whatever they wanted to her while she had to stay motionless.

Abramović also made headlines in 2005 for her 'Seedbed' performance that involved a live masturbation which featured nine orgasms at the Sonnabend Gallery in New York.

The artist has been active in the industry for five decades (Marina Abramović)

Who is Marina Abramović?

Abramović was born in Belgrade, Serbia, then Yugoslavia, on 30 November, 1946.

Having shown an interest in art at an early age, she would fully throw herself into performing conceptual art in the early 1970s.

The artist's work explores body art, endurance art, and the relationship that a performer can build with the audience.

The so-called 'grandmother of performance art' likes to push the limits of the body, which is shown primarily through her work in 'Rhythm 0', where she was stripped down, slashed with blades, and even had a gun held to her head.

She later said that she was prepared to die for the show, adding: "I was very foolish, I have to tell you, in that time, because I was absolutely going to the end, and I was lucky to survive."

Meanwhile, her Seedbed performance was a reconstruction of a similar concept from Vito Acconci in 1972, as she masturbated while her fantasies were played over a speaker in an experience that she admitted was 'really not easy'.

Abramović explained that the taboo aspect intrigued her, and that it took a lot of focus to reach completion nine times in a number of hours.

The artist has always put everything on the line for her work (Marina Abramović)

What did Marina Abramović's ‘Role Exchange’ performance involve?

On a visit to Amsterdam in 1975, the artist decided to switch places with a sex worker in the infamous Red Light District.

She called it a 'Role Exchange', and it took place the same decade as her infamous Rhythm 0 performance.

Recalling the experience, she said that she knew someone whose wife was a sex worker, and came up with the idea of making her go to the gallery as herself, while she traded places and sat in the window to become a sex worker.

"It was pretty scary stuff to do, but this was in 1975, I did it for six hours, it was so fascinating," Abramović remembered.

It was her first time in the city, and she thought it would be a good explorative concept as she was told through her upbringing that a sex worker was 'the lowest thing to be', and the idea of upsetting her mother by doing it became a motivating factor.

She agreed not to go down on the prostitute's price, recalling that one customer asked about her and that the other didn't want to pay the full price.

Abramović later admitted on her website: "She said to me that I would starve if I will be (a) prostitute because I don't have any talent for that role."

So unlike her other popular pieces, she wasn't made to do anything outrageous.

Abramović said that she would have gone through with the deed in Amsterdam if she was paid in full (John Snelling/Getty Images)

What else has Marina Abramović said about ‘Role Exchange’?

In an interview with Angela Serino, Abramović was asked if it was exploring the position of a sex worker or the economic aspect that intrigued her more, to which she admitted it was 'both'.

Speaking about the 'inner experience', she said it was going from the 'protection' of an artist to the 'unprotected area' of being a sex worker.

Abramović admitted: "I was interested to know how that really felt. Which is really an incredible experience because if the customers come and would pay the full price I would really have done it.

"It just happened that I followed the rules and it did not happen," she continues, confessing the 'possibility was so scary'.

"I wanted to know that other world. And I also wanted to see how her world worked in the gallery and whether these two worlds could really be connected or in communication with each other," Abramović explained.

All in all, she admitted that she nor her sex worker friend understood each other any better after the experiment.