Since the beginning of her career in Belgrade in the late 1960s, Marina Abramovic has been a pioneer of performance art, creating some of the most important works in the field. Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present accompanies an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art that documents approximately fifty of the artist s ephemeral, time- and media-based works from throughout her career. The book will also discuss a unique element of the Museum s retrospective, live performance: a new work created for the occasion, and performed by the artist herself; and recreations of Abramovic s works by other performers  the first such to be undertaken in a museum setting. The book spans over four decades of Abramovic s early interventions, and sound pieces, video works, installations, photographs, solo performances and collaborative performances made with the Dutch artist Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen). Its essays examine Abramovic s ideas of time, duration, and the reperformance of performance art as a way to extend it into posterity. Marina Abramovic also includes a CD, an audio recording of the artist s own voice, guiding the reader through the publication. The artist is present not only in the exhibition but also in the experience of the book.