Artist who was 'ready to die' after allowing people to do anything to her for hours explains why she does such extreme performances

An artist has explained why she goes to drastic measures in the name of art.

Many would wonder why you would put a gun and knives on a table in front of you and tell strangers to have a field day on your body, but for artist Marina Abramovic, there's an important reason.

If you've not heard of the Serbian performance artist then welcome to the rabbit hole of craziness you are about to discover - because once you finish this article you'll want to learn more and more about the 77-year-old.

Back in 1974 Naples, Italy, a then 26-year-old Abramovic told spectators that she would take 'full responsibility' for whatever they decided to do to her - and she was even 'ready to die' for her artwork.

She named it Rhythm 0, and it involved her giving herself over to the audience from 8.00pm until 2.00am - she had her clothes ripped off, someone cut her throat to drink her blood and someone even pointed a loaded gun at her head and put her fingers on the trigger.

Marina Abramović performing Rhythm 0 in 1974 (Marina Abramović Institute)

It sounds completely messed up to you and I, but it reached the entire world and has gone down in the history books as arguably the greatest performance art ever created.

But why does she go to such extreme lengths for art?

Speaking to Royal Academy, she said: "Yes, a big one. If there’s something I would like to do, I don’t do it. I only do something if I’m afraid of it, because that’s the whole point.

"If we always tend to do things that we like, then we are creating the same pattern, making the same mistakes again, and we never get out into unknown territory.

"I remember when I first had the first idea for The Artist is Present, I said to myself, 'Oh my god, I’m crazy. How can I do this for three months?', but then I became obsessed. And it was so hard."

Marina Abramovic pioneered performance art (Marilla Sicilia/Archivio Marilla Sicilia/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)

She continued: "It was supernatural to do this – to sit in front of thousands of different people, eight hours a day for three months. There were days when I thought I could not continue. But I did it. And this came out of the complete fear that I could not do it.

"At the same time, The Artist is Present was my big chance to show the public the power, the transformative power, of performance art, by literally doing nothing – by just being in a space and being noticed.

"And then came this incredible thing: people sleeping outside the museum, standing there for hours to see the work. It had 850,000 visitors, which broke records for any living artist. And this was absolutely by being still, being the eye of the tornado."