The renowned performance artist Marina Abramović has discussed her decision to have three abortions throughout her life, saying children would have marked “disaster” for her work as a female artist.

The self-styled “grandmother of performance art” has risked her life for her work, gaining a cult following in the process, during four decades of using her body for art.

Abramović, 69, has staged controversial performance pieces including her 1974 experiment at a gallery in Serbia where members of the public were invited to use items ranging from a feather to a loaded gun on her as they wished.

In her 2010 retrospective, The Artist is Present, Abramović sat motionless at the Museum of Modern Art in New York for three months while 850,000 people queued up to sit in a chair opposite her. She responded simply by staring participants in the eye.

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In an interview with the German newspaper Tagesspiegel, Abramović said children were partly responsible male artists enjoy more success than female artists.

Abramović became divorced from her second husband, the Italian artist Paolo Canevari, in 2009.

“I had three abortions because I was convinced that it would be a disaster for my work, that you only have so much energy in your body and I would have to share it," she said.

“That is my view on the reason that women in the art world are not as successful as men. There are plenty of talented women. Why do men take all the important positions?

"It's simple: love, family, children - a woman does not want to sacrifice all of that.

The Serbian artist said her decision not to start a family had left her “totally free”.