Marina Abramović doesn’t have much time on this Friday morning in December. She says on the phone that she’s in her apartment in Manhattan, but has to leave soon and isn’t fully dressed yet. But she still wants to help you and answer questions and therefore speaks particularly quickly in her English, in which you can still hear Abramović’s origins from Yugoslavia.

THE TIME: You are the grand master of perseverance in the art. Can you please give us some advice: what should we do when it starts to hurt?