When Hunter S. Thompson died in 2005, he went out with a bang. No, seriously: the journalist’s ashes were blasted out of a cannon placed atop a 150 foot tower in the shape of a fist clutching a peyote button as fireworks were shot off to the tune of Bob Dylan’s Mr. Tambourine Man in a ceremony funded by (who else) Johnny Depp.
Thompson’s funeral has since been the stuff of lore, a celebration of the completely crazy life he lead. Apparently, performance artist Marina Abramović has given her own “final performance,” some thought and recently shared details during a talk in Sydney as part of her 12-day residency at Kaldor Public Art Projects.
As ArtNet reported this morning, the performance artist and newly appointed Givenchy collaborator began making preparations following the death of close friend Susan Sontag in 2004. The 68-year-old art provocateur told her Australian audience “an artist should die consciously without fear” and that “the funeral is the artist’s last piece before leaving.”
“I want to have three Marinas,” she continued. “Of course, one is real and two fake because you can’t have three bodies. But I want these three Marinas buried in the three cities which I’ve lived the longest, which is Belgrade, Amsterdam, and New York.” Where the real Marina is to be laid to rest will remain a strict secret. She plans to request everyone wear bright colors, and wants her friend Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons to belt I Did It My Way.
But Abramović may very well be an ageless vampire, as one Redditor postulated in her 2013 Ask Me Anything Q&A. “I will soon post the photo of my grandmother who was 103 and her mother who was 116 to prove that Montenegro people live long and never age.”
Credits
Text Emily Manning
Image via Flickr User Andrew Russeth