Marina Abramovic- The Artist Is Present and Coming to Terms with Guilt

I discussed this work briefly before here The cult of productivity and the point of doing things? But I've been thinking a lot about community and what we leave behind for people and wanted to explore more specifically Abramovic's "The Artist Is Present," a 2010 performance piece conducted in the gallery foyer of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which deals heavily with understanding loneliness in an increasingly individualistic world. I think it's essential to maintain the art institution as an interactive space to keep public interest in these spaces. A critique of the art institution among my generation is that they have a tendency to be stagnant in not showcasing work that is representative of the public of that time participating in the artistic process. The desire of these institutions should firstly be in pursuit of maintaining a sense of community. "The Artist Is Present" exists as an answer to a kind of intimacy where language fails us, and in that is an understanding of the role stillness and silence play as a foundation that no love, however brief, is wasted. Abramovic practiced this work for the entire duration of her retrospective at MoMA without food, water, or breaks. For 736 hours and 30 minutes from March 14th to May 31st, she sat in silence as a fixture of the exhibition, inviting visitors to sit across from her for durations as little or as long as they pleased. The only rule being that they weren't allowed to touch or speak to each other for the duration of the sitting. Which is a deceivingly difficult task. How long do you think you could stare someone in the eyes in silence? Before you begin to mimic each other and the breakdown of the ego becomes evident. In the anticipation of sitting before her, Abramovic surely takes on a kind of mythical authority as if in silence you reveal more and more helplessly without trying, and then you sit down and all at once you become equal to the person before you, a complete stranger. That is the nature of what this interaction seeks to bring out. Your ego manifests itself through exerting power through language through a physical force, bonds are built in our daily life through constantly shifting power dynamics, and Abramovic is simply probing if there's anything beyond that. Are our gestures blind in this state? I carry a lot of guilt around with me, more than someone my age should. Growing up, I was taught, or rather scolded, that any kind of distress could be cured through physical laboring. That this was the bare minimum, but sometimes making space for stillness becomes the only way to move past whatever it is that you may carry.

The rule I mentioned initially was only broken once throughout the entire proceeding by Frank Uwe Laysiepen, also known as Ulay. Also, a performance artist, Ulay was a longtime collaborator and partner of Abramovic, having worked on several projects together, exploring the limits of male and female individual ritual and how much time we give to maintaining these rituals, one of the most notable being "Lovers" in which begininng on opposite ends of the Great Wall of China they walked towards each other until by the time they met at the middle of the wall their relationship had completely dissolved. It had been 20 years since they had spoken or interacted with each other, and any attempt I make to describe the moment that Ulay sat opposite from Abramovic would be insufficient, so I'll link the video but to think someone from your past life could so easily walk back into your life and all your left to do is be paralyzed in watching is all at once both a dream and a curse.

There's a thought experiment I particularly enjoy that I feel relates to the nature of this work. Imagine for a moment that you lived the life of every single person in human history, but you remember none of it. Would that make you the loneliest person in eternity? Even though your surrounded by others, other versions of yourself for eternity. You are the universe experiencing itself, and with that you've accomplished more than you could ever imagine possible, literally. But you've also brought everything to the brink of destruction a handful of times.