Saturday, July 31, 2010

Hall of Mirrors

This past spring artist Marina Abramavic did a performance piece entitled the 'The artist is present' click me! that consisted of her sitting in one spot every day for over eight hours and staring at people and letting them stare back, without words. She did this from March 14th until the exhibition's close on May 31st. The MOMA had a photographer present to record each visitor and take portraits. Occasionally the photographer would catch Marina's reactions to these visitors. There was also a live cam recording everything in real time. You can see the portraits here click me! My oldest friend and sister person Nandi click me! sat with Marina the most times out of any other visitor to the exhibit. As her face started appearing on the portrait stream repeatedly she caught the eye of a few journalists and bloggers, all of whom speculated as to who she was and what she was doing. Some gossip even started to circulate on Gawker and other sites that she might be Marina's daughter. She also wore the same robe every time she sat. Sometimes she cried, sometimes she stared blankly. Now that enough time has passed since the exhibits end I feel it's probably cool to post these. The truth is that Nandi is actually an artist in her own right. She teaches photography at Parsons. She used Marina's project as a way to do her own piece about her mother. You can read about it here click me!. Anyway, I didn't post all 29 photos, but lets just say the whole thing was amazing, moving.