Here’s something I didn’t expect to be typing: pioneering performance artist Marina Abramović has released a wellness range. The Marina Abramović Longevity method, described by Vogue as a “tight-knit edit” and by the weird website video as reviving “ancient secrets of longevity”, consists of a face moisturiser (£199; the listed key ingredients are white bread, vitamin C and white wine) and anti-allergy, immune and energy “wellbeing drops”.
The project apparently took shape after the doctor and holistic practitioner Nonna Brenner treated Abramović for Lyme disease in 2017, including with leeches. “This dark black jelly came out of my belly,” Abramović told the FT, which absolutely sounds like something from one of her performance pieces. Now Dr Brenner has concocted this range and Abramović is endorsing it with her exquisite 77-year-old face and her fingerprints (on the packaging).
I’m thrilled leeches and garlic drops made Abramović feel better; she’s a wonder and a one-off. But is this the most off-brand celebrity side hustle ever? It definitely beats Jason Derulo’s car wash or Penélope Cruz dressing up as Mario for Nintendo DS.
Three hopes prevent me from despairing that the most influential performance artist of our age, whose oeuvre has been dedicated to challenging the limits and exploring the power and vulnerability of her body, is worried about “wrinkles and age spots”. The first is that this project is actually Art, and all will be revealed later. The website copy is promising: “Central to the Abramović Longevity Method is the belief in the transformative power of rituals and artistic expression,” it says at one point.
The second is that the Longevity Method is merely the start of an ambitiously weird Abramović wellness empire that will grow and get stranger until Goop’s jade eggs and vaginal steaming are entirely forgotten.
The third is that these potions actually work and let her live for ever: “Nonna is determined for me to live 110 years,” Abramović told Vogue. “Female artists only get really taken seriously after 100, so if I make it, maybe they will finally take me seriously.” Now that’s a worthwhile wellness goal.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
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