Some internet users saw this as evidence that tied Ms. Abramovic to a wider conspiracy known as #PizzaGate, in which Mr. Podesta was said to be involved in a child-trafficking ring run out of a pizza parlor.

Ms. Abramovic said the “Spirit Cooking” dinner, which had the same name as a book and a performance in which she painted absurd recipes in blood on the walls of an Italian gallery, actually involved her cooking a few simple dishes for about 20 people who had donated to her art institute.

“We had lots of fun,” she said. “There was no human blood, or baby serving, or sex orgies.” So when the conspiracy theories started popping up, Ms. Abramovic said, she thought it was “just insane.”

“I am an artist, not a Satanist!” she said.

Ms. Abramovic said she expected the rumors to last a few weeks, at most, then disappear. Four years later, they haven’t.

Since then, Ms. Abramovic has received many emailed death threats — sometimes three a day, she said. The organizers of some of her shows had also received threats, she added, including the Royal Academy in London, where she is scheduled to have a retrospective this year, and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, where she is hoping to stage a new opera.