Last week, I took my intern to Marina Abramović’s ”The Artist Is Present” at MOMA. We both left speechless. I am going to attempt to make this brief, but it is exceptionally hard because each piece really deserves a blog entry of it’s own.
A retrospective of performance art is a hard concept to grasp. Is it possible to understand, to really get the full effect of an artist’s body of work through live re-creations, along with video, sound, and photographic documentation? In my (newly formed) opinion, yes. Each room I entered was a unique and profound experience. I felt connected to every single piece I watched/read/interacted with. I cannot recall the last exhibition that elicited that kind of response from me.
From video of a young Marina obsessively and violently brushing her hair, to re-creations of her collaborative work with former lover Frank Uwe Laysiepen (Ulay), to the final live performance of the artist’s silent interaction with audience members, I was captivated. Also worth noting, each piece really FELT like it was hers, reenacted or otherwise.
There is criticism that her work is ego-driven, and that turns some people off I suppose. However, I think that for an artist to present you with pieces that are each engaging and compelling in a completely different way, yet so personally connected to the artist that you cannot separate one from the other, is to truly succeed. I mean, isn’t that what it’s all about? Besides, what was ever so wrong with ego to begin with?
