Performance artist Marina Abramovic is set to publish her memoirs, including a passage referring to Australia’s indigenous people as ‘dinosaurs. Picture: Bob Barker.

Marina Abramovic’s bizarre comparisons are expected to feature in a soon-to-be-published memoir titled Walk Through Walls.

One passage in particular from advanced copies of her 384-page book began circulating on social media on Tuesday. Readers described it as “racist tripe”, “monstrously ugly and deeply racist” and “vile racist screed”.

Others used the hashtag #TheRacistIsPresent, a reference to Abramovic’s 2010 exhibition titled The Artist Is Present, in which the artist sat at a table inside the Museum of Modern Art for 736 hours while visitors took turns sitting opposite her.

Marina Abramovic’s sits still and silent for her exhibition The Artist Is Present at MOMA in 2010.Source:Supplied

The description in the book was a reference to her first encounter with Aboriginal people in 1979. It reads:

It wasn’t just the heat that was shocking. Nothing prepares you for the ubiquitous dirt and the overwhelming smell and the swarming, clustering, relentless flies of the outback, and nothing prepares Westerners ... for meeting Australia’s first inhabitants.

Aborigines are not just the oldest race in Australia; they are the oldest race on the planet. They look like dinosaurs. They are really strange and different, and they should be treated as living treasures. Yet they are not.

But at the same time, when you first meet them, you have to put effort into it. For other thing, to Western eyes they look terrible. Their faces are like no other faces on earth; they have big torsos and sticklike legs.

In a statement sent to news.com.au through her manager, Abramovic said she owed “everything” to the people she met in the Australian outback.

“I have the greatest respect for Aborigine people, to whom I owe everything. The time I spent with members of the Pitjantjatjara and Pintupi tribes in Australia was a transformative experience for me, and one that has deeply and indelibly informed my entire life and art,” she said.

Marina Abramovic was labelled a racist on social media for her descriptions of Aboriginal people.Source:Supplied

“The description contained in an early, uncorrected proof of my forthcoming book is taken from my diaries and reflects my initial reaction to these people when I encountered them for the very first time way back in 1979.

“It does not represent the understanding and appreciation of Aborigines that I subsequently acquired through immersion in their world and carry in my heart today.”

Abramovic is no stranger to controversy. The woman who calls herself the “grandmother of performance art” has spoken publicly about being abused as a young woman.

In her art, she lets others abuse her, too. In 1974, she invited members of the public to use any one of 72 items against her. The items included olive oil, roses, a whip, honey, a feather, a scalpel and a gun with a single bullet.

After six hours, she admitted: “I was ready to die” but acknowledged she was “lucky” despite suffering a series of cuts. She said she wanted to “take the risk”.

In 2015, she was in the news again, accusing rapper Jay Z of “completely using me” in a 2013 video clip for his track Picasso Baby.

The pair came together for the project in 2013 but Abramovic said two years later that it only benefited him.

“In the end it was only a one-way transaction. I will never do it again, that I can say. Never,” she said.

“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.”

The 69-year-old visited Australia in 2015. On that occasion, she spoke warmly about her previous visits.

“I have been many times in Australia since 1979 to study Aboriginal culture, to do residencies with different academies, to work with students and do different research,” she told The Guardian.

Australian artist John Kaldor said at the time that Abramovic had been heavily influenced by her time in Australia.

“She holds Australia very dear to her heart — like her artistic, spiritual home. Spending six or seven months in the outback really transformed her art.”

Author and performance artist Marina Abramovic has a new book coming out but it’s been slammed for including racist content. Picture: FacebookSource:Facebook