About this video
Marina Abramović describes preparing her MoMA retrospective 'The Artist is Present', a historic experiment in how performance can enter, be collected by and be re-performed in a museum. She will be present for the museum's full opening hours for three months while five earlier works are re-performed, hopes to reach a wider audience than her own generation, and reflects on leaving a good idea as her legacy.
You'll be able to
- describe what made The Artist is Present a big experiment.
- explain the questions the show raises about collecting and re-performing performance art.
- explain why Abramović wants her work to reach beyond her own generation.
Key words
- retrospective
- An exhibition looking back over an artist's whole career.
- re-performance
- When an earlier performance artwork is performed again, often by other people.
- legacy
- What a person leaves behind after they die.
Transcript
(paddle drum beat) (paddle drum beat) - This kind of exhibition is really unique, the public will see something they never saw before, and I hope they will like it and I hope they will really have the different and change opinion about performance art. So the preparation for the MoMA show, it's going well.
I mean, it's a very big task for me because it's not just third perspective of my performers' work, it's what really stands for some kind of historical view, what performers can be, and how the performers can enter the museum, and how can be performers collected from the museum, and what happen if a performer die, if the work can be re-performed, can be continue, and what kind of roles that will take.
It's really interesting to see how the performers can be present in the museum, live. The title of the show is Marina Abramović Artist is Present. Literally, I will be there for entire period of time of three months and the duration of the opening of the museum, which means seven and a half hours of every day.
Also, there will be re-performance of five of my performances, some of which I made in seventies and eighties, and they're going to re-perform the same amount of time, like three months. So this kind of thing's never been done til now, so it's a really big experiment.
I myself never actually performed three months also. If at my opening, and my opening come only the artists of my generation, I know of something's terribly wrong, because it means that my work doesn't communicate anywhere, that means it's dead. There was a very funny interview of Leonard Cohen, and he say, "I am now in a third act," and in third act, everything start very well, but in the end, the main actor die.
I also feel that I'm in a kind of third act right now, you know, (mumbing) MoMA, it's finishing a huge amount of work, which is very interesting about legacy, what you going to leave after you die. But one thing you can leave always is a good idea, and I really wanted to have this good idea to live after me.
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