VimeoUPDATE: The Marina Abramovic Institute said in a statement carried by The New York Times that Jay Z had donated to the group after all, adding, "Marina Abramovic was not informed of Shawn 'Jay Z' Carter's donation from two years ago" when she gave the interview to Spike magazine.
"We are sincerely sorry to both Marina Abramovic and Shawn 'Jay Z' Carter for this, and since then we have taken to appropriate actions to reconcile this matter," the statement said.
The apology followed comments from Jay Z art advisor Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, who read his receipt for a "generous" gift for the Marina Abramovic Institute that said, "Thank you for your donation."
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Marina Abramovic is very unhappy with Jay Z.
The 68-year-old New York-based performance artist says she allowed the 45-year-old rapper and producer to adapt her "The Artist Is Present" exhibition for his Picasso Baby performance art film under the condition that he support the Marina Abramović Institute and that he did not fulfill his end of the bargain. He has not commented.
"The day before, he came to my office and I gave him an entire PowerPoint presentation and said, 'Okay, you can help me, because I really need help to build this thing," she told the art magazine Spike in an interview published this week. "Then he just completely used me. And that wasn't fair. This is very different from Lady Gaga, for example, who has done great work for me. Just by having 45 million followers, she brought all these young kids into my public."
At her exhibition, Abramovic had sat silently on a chair for 736 hours at her exhibition and visitors were invited to sit opposite her for as long as they wanted, according to Time magazine.
For his music video, which premiered on HBO in August 2013, Jay Z rapped "Picasso Baby" for six hours at New York's Pace Gallery. Abramović herself appears in the short film, forehead-to-forehead with the hip-hop star. Girls cast members Adam Driver and Jemima Kirke, Broadway and The Good Wife actor Alan Cumming, Empire star Taraji P. Henson and comedy film director Judd Apatow also make cameos.
"There was one reason for this that I can't talk about," Abramovic told Spike, regarding her appearance. "I am very pissed by this, since he adapted my work only under one condition: That he would help my institute. Which he didn't."
"And in the end it was only a one-way transaction," she added. "I will never do it again, that I can say. Never. I was really naive in this kind of world. It was really new to me, and I had no idea that this would happen. It's so cruel, it's incredible. I will stay away from it for sure."