Marina Abramovic @ MOMA

In stark contrast to the Tim Burton exhibit at the MOMA, I LOVED the Marina Abramovic exhibit, The Artist is Present (through May 31^st, 2010). This is a retrospective of Abramovic’s long career of performance art.  Now, how do you do a retrospective of Performance Art? And more importantly, how do you do one well? MOMA has figured that out, the institution has gone as far as to hire live actors who are ‘re-performing’ some of Abramovic’s most famous works.  Now, one of the most inherent aspects of Performance Art is its’ temporality. There’s the fact that the art was performed and now it’s over—and if you missed it, you missed it—or so you may have thought. Here, the MOMA provides these fabulous reenactments and combines them with original videos, photographs and artifacts of many of her past performances to not only give the viewer a real impression of Abramovic’s accomplishments, but to also let today’s  visitor experience being there for and participating in that original performance.

The exhibition title, The Artist is Present, refers to the work Abramovic is performing downstairs from the retrospective. In the main foyer, Abramovic is seated at a table facing another empty chair. She arrives each day before the museum opens, takes her seat and progresses into a trance like state. Abramovic remains in that state until after the museum closes. There are no bathroom breaks here! Museum patrons are invited to sit opposite Abramovic for as long as they can stand it and engage her in any way they’d like (minus touching her). I’ve read about visitors sitting opposite the artist and sketching her, or wearing similar garb and mirroring the artist herself (artsjournal.com/culturegrrl) .The piece is a true testament to her endurance, and it lends authenticity and legitimacy to her retrospective upstairs.

One of Abramovic’s most famous works is only shown in part at the MOMA, though Rhythm O, was originally performed in 1974 in Naples, Italy. It involves a table and a sign and again, the artist herself. On the table are 72 various items that are meant to be used on Abramovic’s person, and there’s a sign that alerts the audience that this is the case. The items range from feathers to a bullet and gun. When it was originally performed the public started by tickling her with roses, and then progressed to cutting her clothing off and sticking her with the thorns of that same rose.  Eventually it escalated to patrons putting the single available bullet into the gun, pointing that loaded gun towards Abramovic’s head. She remained there for a total of 6 hours, and when that time was up she simply stood up, but found that her audience were not up for the task of facing her. The original work illustrated the power of ‘group think.’ Those patrons, decided en masse to hurt a passive woman just standing there by exploiting her vulnerability.  Like many others in her catalogue raissone, Rhythm O also serves to blur line between audience and artwork, viewer and viewed art object.  Today, as you may have guessed, Rhythm O isn’t currently being ‘re=performed’ at the MOMA, understandably because of safety and insurance issues concerning having a gun and ammunition at the MOMA, though the table, 72 items and sign are displayed.

Back in the corner of the first gallery and next to the table of items meant to titillate and taunt Abramovic back in 1974, there is a pair of nude actors facing each other locked in each other’s gaze. Instead of expressing embarrassment at their nudity, again, they simply stand there passively. Here, in the re-performance of Imponderabilia (originally performed by Abramovic and Ulay in 1977 at a museum in Bologna), patrons are again invited to squeeze between the nude pair. They ignore you as you brush past their skin, but it certainly serves to make the passage into the next gallery a bit awkward for shy visitors. (Though I dare say that many New Yorkers have squeezed passed fellow subway passengers in much the same way, but I personally don’t recall any of them being nude) The major difference between this ‘re-performance’ and the original is that there is a second entrance into the next gallery here at the MOMA. Visitors aren’t forced to walk through the nude pair, but can simply walk around the galleries’ dividing wall. In the original, patrons had to walk between the pair in order to enter the museum. This serves to blur the line once more between audience and performance making them one and the same for a few moments in time.

Some of you may recall that one of Abramovic’s performances was featured (or parodied, depending upon how you look at it) in an episode of Sex and the City. It’s the episode where Carrie is dating a Russian artist, played by Mikhail Baryshnikov, after they meet in Charlotte’s Gallery. In it, the artist lives in a very simple and sparse set at Charlotte’s gallery for the length of the exhibition, and patrons are invited to view her there at all hours of the day or night.  On a whim, at 3 am Carrie and ‘The Russian’ decide to check if the artist is really still there, and miraculously, she is.

In the actual work, The House with the Ocean View at the Sean Kelly Gallery in 2002, Abramovic lived and fasted for 12 days in the same sparse series of rooms hovering high above the floor. The Gallery extended its’ hours so that viewers could see her exist in this space at any given hour, nothing was off limits to the viewing public. The set used, complete with the knife slatted ladders that leaned up against it, is also on display here at the MOMA. There isn’t a live actor ‘re-performing’ the work for the length of the exhibit, but since Sex and The City already beat Abramovic to the punch, perhaps this is for the best.

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