To experience the work of performance artist Marina Abramović is to step outside of the time-space continuum. That’s how she likes it, I think, and that is why we flock to her unblinking gaze. This was most literally true at her “The Artist Is Present” show, which exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in the spring of 2010 and to date may be the most famous performance art piece of this millennium. In it, she took over the museum’s atrium and, adorned in a floor-length dress of wool and cashmere, sat eight hours each day in an armless chair as she silently held the gaze of every visitor who sat opposite her. Continue Reading →
Archive | Art Matters
The Cat Lady Is Present
October 22, 2016 in Art Matters, Book Matters, Cat Lady Matters
I’m on Day 3 of Marina Abramović immersion for a piece I’m writing about her new memoir, Walk Through Walls. She is a thorny, intriguing subject, and I feel both stuck and manic as I write and write and delete and delete. To ground out the fever the Artist has conjured in me –the Liser-sized warp in the time-space continuum– I keep scooping up poor Grace, who is cowering in her special rocking chair. While she protests with her newly acquired “Noooooo” meow, I say: “THE PERMAKITTEN IS PRESENT.” There is only one amused member of my household today.
New Moon Justice
September 30, 2016 in Art Matters, Astro Matters, Country Matters