THE ART OF BEING PRESENT
The decision in 2010 to title Marina Abramović’s four-decade retrospective at MoMA in New York City The Artist Is Present all but preordained the monumental performance that would come out of it. Naturally, Marina would have to be present in one way or another.
But no one would have dared think that she would literally be there . . . for all of it.
Who could conceive that a human could sit silently in a chair, completely still, for a total of 750 hours over 79 days directly across from 1,545 strangers, without aid, without distraction, without so much as a way to go to the bathroom? That she would want to do this? That she would pull it off?
As her former lover and collaborator, Ulay said when he was asked what he thought of the possibility, “I have no thoughts. Only respect.”
The performance was as simple as it was straightforward. Marina, aged sixty-three, her long hair braided and over her shoulder, walked into the cavernous room, sat down in a hard wooden chair, and simply stared at the person across from her. One after another they came, hour after hour, day in and day out, for nearly three months. Each time, she looked down, gathered herself, and then looked up afresh at the new face.
As Marina would say of her art, “The proposition here is just to empty the self. To be able to be present.”
Is it really that hard—to be present?
What’s so special about that?
No one who was in the audience, who sat across from her, would ask such questions. For those souls...READ MORE
