http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/02/26/t-magazine/1247467181063/t-exclusive-marina-abramovic.html?ref=design
I was first introduced to Marina as a senior in college through the unsearchable Jackie Milad's Visual and Performance Arts class. To date, it is one of the best classes I've ever taken. Marina and the audacity of her "Imponderabilia" piece shocked me. Two artists standing in opposite sides of a narrow doorway, NAKED -- as the only entrance to the museum, speaks volumes. Given, the starkness of the scenario the spectator must first decide IF he wants to merely enter or not. If the answer is yes, he must then decide HOW he wants to enter: facing Marina, or facing ULAY. You cannot enter frontally, as this is the sign of indifference. To truly experience an artists work the spectator must face him. To inspect an artist work is to inspect his very nakedness. If you find their doorway of nudity an impedance and the decision not to enter is made, then the spectator has rejected the artist, and cannot experience his art, and ultimately: cannot experience himself. Some artists use extreme subtlety or extreme examples to make their point, but here Marina brings the interaction between artist and spectator under a electron microscope and magnifies it for all to see. Like the starkness of a magnified cellular golgi apparatus, one is either immediately repulsed or intrigued - both are appreciated by the artist. Indifference is the true insult.
Now this silent opera. It is a drama of one woman challenging the world to face her as she sits for 7 hours each day at MoMA in simple ballroom gowns. It is set to the music of silence. The spectator can sit opposite Marina as she reclines in silence. The eyes talk. Marina has always had a obsession with silence which a young me once perceived as outlandish. But in the last year or two I have wondered what my world would be like if my words were far fewer. Without the distraction of formulating words and sentences, would my eyes and brain see more?
Perhaps.
Marina is clearly a genius. I wonder if she loves God.
"one is either immediately repulsed or intrigued - both are appreciated by the artist. Indifference is the true insult."
ReplyDelete________
i will judge a work of art by its profundity, its complexity & its ability to stimulate the intellect.
"immediate" is an adjective akin to "impulse" & "basic instinct"; a kinetic effect; and therefore, a marker of untrue art.
transcending the physical, the kinetic, the spinal--that is true arts purpose. "immediate" denies one the possibility of a rich experience of artistic apprehension.
D, you I know, and I have seen you in the throws of "immediate" apprehension of art.
ReplyDeleteImmediate is not synonymous with impulsive, I must remind you. And "immediate" defines the reaction of the spectator, and not the quality of art per se.
On the most "cellular" something organic happens immediately as a reaction to art - - this is my point, be it conscious or subconscious.
I would challenge you to scour Marina's art. Not all of them are as obvious as "Inponderabilia".
"immediate" defines the reaction of the spectator, and not the quality of art per se.
ReplyDelete_______
the true purpose of art, if i may plagiarize hamlet, is as follows:
to o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of art, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
therefore, the quality of art, per se, is defined by the effect it has on the spectator... particularly the discerning one
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I'll take up your "challenge" to scour Marina's art. Of course, my criticism wasn't balance... I merely "attacked" Marina.
If I find occasion to praise Marina, I'll let you know :)