"The Artist is Present"

carlosbaila:

Marina Abramovic meets Ulay

 A friend had gotten me in free to MoMA; I was just going to kill some time there before another event.  Immediately noticing some bright photo lights up on the Atrium, above where I was in the lobby, and being "into" photography at the time, I climbed the stairs towards them.  

There, in the middle of a big empty square space, was a table with two women seated at it, sitting still, facing each other.  And there were three video cameras, and a photographer who had two Canon 1Ds, with REALLY long lenses .  All the gear was trained on the two women.

Around the edge of the square was a crowd of people, sitting and standing, looking at these two women.  So I did too.

One of them had a dramatic red gown on, so I decided she was the principal.  After watching them sitting there for a while, I walked around the edge and found a plaque on the wall that explained the piece.

It said that the artist invited anyone who wished to, to sit down across from her, and then they and her would look at each other quietly, for as long as the person wanted to.  And the artist was going to keep sitting there, every day and every hour that the museum was open, for the 3-month length of the exhibition.  Hence the show's title:  "The Artist is Present". 

So right away that made it more interesting.   There was something compelling about the artist, Marina Abramovic — she had thick black hair in a very long braid — like a gypsy fortune teller, I thought.

I looked away for a moment, and when I looked back, Marina had her head in her hands, and the other woman had walked back to outside the square, where she was gesticulating to her friends in a way that made it seem she had a very intense experience.  Like electric rays had been passing from Marina's eyes into her...  Another woman took her place in the chair, Marina looked up, and the staring began anew...

So, I don't know.  I didn't completely get it.  But it did seem kind of a neat idea.

After a while, I remembered that I had seen signs that the exhibition continued up on a higher floor.   Up there,  it was a retrospective of her career as a performance artist from the 70's 'till now.

I got totally caught up in her story!     Here is an early piece where she brushed her hair for an hour, saying "Art is Beautiful, Artist Must be Beautiful"... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_VxR3TUdoU&feature=related 

It said on a label that she would think of different things she could do, and the one that scared her the most, invariably that would be the one she would end up doing....  such as this one:

Rhythm 0, 1974

To test the limits of the relationship between performer and audience, Abramovic developed one of her most challenging (and best-known) performances. She assigned a passive role to herself, with the public being the force which would act on her.
Abramovic had placed upon a table 72 objects that people were allowed to use (a sign informed them) in any way that they chose. Some of these were objects that could give pleasure, while others could be wielded to inflict pain, or to harm her. Among them were scissors, a knife, a whip, and, most notoriously, a gun and a single bullet. For six hours the artist allowed the audience members to manipulate her body and actions.
Initially, members of the audience reacted with caution and modesty, but as time passed (and the artist remained impassive) several people began to act quite aggressively. As Abramovic described it later:
“The experience I learned was that…if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed.” ... “I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.”

*******************************

At MoMA, they had the table with all that stuff laid out on it.  They also had live performers re-enacting some of Marina's old pieces, sometimes in the nude, which — I just couldn't care about them, because I had become smitten with Marina by this point — but here's an article about that part...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/arts/design/16public.html

One thing I really liked was that Marina gave a performance every year on her birthday; it was part of her artistic philosophy to do so.  And she was doing it in a different city, and she met this guy who was also doing a performance, because it was HIS birthday!  

They were the same age, born the same day, doing the same thing. So from then on they were inseparable, and performed as a male/female pair.  His name was Ulay...  here is a typical thing they did together that was reenacted by other people at MoMA:

http://catalogue.nimk.nl/art_play.php?id=7094

And here is a scarier piece....

http://catalogue.nimk.nl/art_play.php?id=1827

And another thing they did was "Nightsea Crossing", where they would sit across a table from each other, at different cities, and sit still for 7 hours.  This was actually a terribly painful and maddening thing to do.    Ulay would sometimes have to quit, but Marina never would.

They were together for 12 years, but sadly, they broke up.  The way they broke up was to walk from opposite ends of the great wall of China and meet in the middle.  Where they said goodbye.   Marina was crying (of course they videotaped the whole thing) and I felt very sorry for them.  They were soul-mates!   

The next room continued with her post-Ulay work, which usually involved some act of deprivation or endurance, such as when she lived on public display in a Soho gallery for 11 days ... 

http://www.skny.com/exhibitions/2002-11-15_marina-abramovi/ 

So. I go back downstairs. But NOW, Marina is like a movie star to me.   I got hit with the impact of her whole career's vision out of the blue, in two hours.  

I have time to watch her for another hour before I have to go ... and because I am sitting there for a while, I notice the other people who are staying still, watching, like me.  

I see this one vaguely familiar-looking guy leaning up against the opposite wall, just outside of Marina's field of view. Suddenly I think -- could it be?  Is it Ulay?   Has he come back, finally, to see Marina recreate their greatest performance, maybe to recreate it together?  That's the thought I go out with ... and that night, I find the rest of the story....

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/34097/present-and-past/

I miss living in NYC!