Closed for over a year now, Marina Abramovic's retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art and the amount of coverage, articles and commentary documenting it seem like a distant past.
At the time I remember being struck by the general uniformity of critical response which matched her audiences attitude: either utmost seriousness or profound awe (and a striking lack of humor). The constraints of the institution - the intense security (transgressors could be banned from the MoMA for life), the difficult acoustics, the bright neons - were probably the principle causes for this monotone outcome, but overall the artist's serious form of self-making in the show - with Abramovic replicating herself through her performance and reperformances - was like turning everyone that participated into her (too grim? too dramatic?) outlook.
Pippin Barr recently came up with "The Artist is Present" game, which embodies quite well the qualms mentioned above as well as the weird steps involved in the Marina art experience (although I feel like the art experience in general to a certain extent too).
At the time I remember being struck by the general uniformity of critical response which matched her audiences attitude: either utmost seriousness or profound awe (and a striking lack of humor). The constraints of the institution - the intense security (transgressors could be banned from the MoMA for life), the difficult acoustics, the bright neons - were probably the principle causes for this monotone outcome, but overall the artist's serious form of self-making in the show - with Abramovic replicating herself through her performance and reperformances - was like turning everyone that participated into her (too grim? too dramatic?) outlook.
Pippin Barr recently came up with "The Artist is Present" game, which embodies quite well the qualms mentioned above as well as the weird steps involved in the Marina art experience (although I feel like the art experience in general to a certain extent too).
