This Vale of Tears
by Rebecca Schoenkopf
Everywhere I've spent my online today (and I have spent ninety hours online today), people have been writing about Marina Abramovic. They have been going on and on. They have been going crazy for her.
Abramovic has been sitting in NYC's Museum of Modern Art for some weeks, and people have been lining up to sit with her, and once at the front of the line, they can sit for as long as they like. (Some of the online offerings today have been sniffy that some, like Bjork, got cutsies.) One woman sat with Abramovic the entire eight hours.
The New York Times offers a (very long) paean from a friend and art critic, who also spent three months writing the catalogue for the retrospective (and recreation) of Abramovic's performance works. It's sort of interesting.
But what's disturbing and titillating and fascinating is the faces of those who sat with her. Some weep, and stay five minutes. Others stay four or five hours--and their intense faces speak of some weird longing for recognition, for fame, for understanding that they are bad-ass, and can sit very long. They're beautiful, and disturbed.
MoMA's flickr feed, with a portrait of everyone who has so far sat with Abramovic, is here.
Comments
No comments.
