Artist explains why she had group of nude men hump ground and women flash vagina at sky

Performance artist Marina Abramović has explained her 'most ambitious work in her career', Balkan Erotic Epic, which sees men hump the ground and women flash their bits at the sky.

You might have heard of Abramović from her earlier work, including the infamous Rhythm 0, where she stood in a room and let people do whatever they wanted to her for six hours.

The performance certainly had an impact as people broke out into fights, seriously wounded Abramović, and at one point put a loaded gun to her head and placed her finger on the trigger.

Abramović said she had been 'willing to die' during the performance and admits she was 'lucky to survive' after the lengths some of the audience pushed things to.

More recently, she put on a show in Manchester called Balkan Erotic Epic, which rather does what it says on the tin, and she's made a work with the same name before.

Marina Abramović has put on all sorts of performances over the years (Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for TAEX — Marina Abramovic Element Preview)

In the 2006 anthology film Destricted, she made the short film Balkan Erotic Epic, which featured naked men lying on the ground humping it while women bared their breasts to the sun and flashed their vulvas to rainy skies.

Her segment focused on Balkan sexuality and folklore, including the idea that if it rained, women would flash their vulvas to the sky to scare the gods into making the rain go away.

"Balkan Erotic Epic is the most ambitious work in my career," Abramović said of the short film.

Marina said it was one of her most ambitious projects yet (Marina Abramovic)

"This gives me a chance to go back to my Slavic roots and culture, look back to ancient rituals and deal with sexuality in relation to the universe and the unanswered questions of our existence."

After turning the short film into a stage performance, she spoke further about the ideas at play in the show.

She told the Telegraph: "This is incredible, the idea of the power of a vagina to stop the rain.

"This is a ritual I’m going to do in Manchester with ­24 dancers… so you can imagine the effect on the English.

"Today – the political correctness we’re living in, so that you can’t even tell a dirty joke – none of these works would be allowed. I think today they’ve really cut the freedom of an artist."

Among her other performances has been an exhibit where she was masturbating non-stop while speakers played recordings of her fantasies, a four-minute performance where she was holding a bow and someone else drew back the string while an arrow was pointed at her heart.