"The wonderful thing about Marina's work is that it gives us permission to do anything ... anything."
Marina Abramovic performing "Lips of Thomas"
as part of "Seven Easy Pieces" (2005)
At the time of the opening of Marina Abramovic's solo exhibition "The Artist is Present" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I found that the most enlightening coverage in the media was Robert Ayers' interview of the artist in his weblog, "A Sky filled with Shooting Stars." An artist in his own right, who has since created the Facebook group "Sitting WIth Marina," Robert seemed to me the perfect person from whom to evoke some thoughts as the show draws to a close at the end of May.
Robert Ayers in Berlin Photo by Merrilll Greene
LD: You have said Marina Abramovic was an influence/inspiration to you. Describe the first moment you experienced being touched by her work. How did you proceed as an artist in light of this?
RA: I must have first seen images of Marina's performances when I was a student, I suppose. And I became increasingly aware of her work as she became better known outside of what used to be Yugoslavia. By the time that I first got to know her - when we were working together at Tate Liverpool in 2001 - I was a huge fan of her work. Still, that first encounter was a real surprise ... This was the completely reconstructed post-Ulay Marina, no longer the totally serious, totally self-conscious modernist, but a super-aware ironist ... she was literally the life and soul of the party! It took me a while to realize that in either mood, her engagement with her work and its significance was the same. Maybe that was the example that she provided: art - at least as most of us define it - is made by human beings, and at its most successful it is a direct extension of the human spirit, or a reflection of it. I know that's rather saying everything and nothing, but that's probably what I would say I've derived from her. (The lessons that a tiny little insignificant artist like myself can be fortunate enough to learn from a great artist like Marina Abramovic - for I genuinely believe she is one of a handful of the greatest artists working today - are perhaps the more significant the more fundamental they are.)
LD: If she gave you permission her send one thing today - a message, an object a gift - what would that be?
RA: It would be a smile, and it would be delivered from the chair opposite her in the MoMA atrium.
LD: When and why did you decide to create the "Sitting With Marina" page on Facebook?
RA: Because I no longer live in New York, I have made a point of going into MoMA and visiting her each time I am in town. I first saw her performing "The Artist is Present" at its very outset ... at the press view on March 6 ... and I've been in twice (once each month) since then. It occurred to me that I wasn't going to get the chance to physically sit with her, because each time I've been in, there've been way too many people waiting - there were 38 last Friday afternoon! Also, I'm really concerned by how ill Marina looks. The performance is really taking it out of her. So, knowing how the whole piece is about energy, it occurred to me that I could focus some of my energy - and, if this doesn't sound arrogant, help focus other people's energy - by setting up a framework for people to simply think about Marina. That was why I set up the facebook group. It's a spirit portal for the twenty-first century! (Incidentally, although I didn't make any announcement about this, and maybe I should, I decided for very similar reasons to keep my interview with Marina on the front page of A Sky filled with Shooting Stars. (It will be replaced by a Mickalene Thomas interview on June 1.)
LD: As the exhibition winds down, it feels like her work here has just begun...how do you think "The Artist Is Present" will resonate through the public and the art world?
RA: I think it will be every bit as significant as Marina hoped. There will always be arguments about the rights and wrongs of re-staging performances, but this show has made it plain that there is no reason whatsoever why a performance cannot be re-done as an element in a major museum show. It will change the whole perception of performance art as "exhibitable". I also think it will redefine what is thought of as "durational" performance. It will also, incidentally, turn her into a superstar. I'm not sure whether that is altogether a good thing, though I am sure she will have thought that through and seen it as part of her work.
LD: My overall impression of the retrospective portion of the exhibition is that Abramovic has been an explorer, each creation a groundbreaking adventure as a artist, a performer and a woman. Do you agree, and where do you see her going next?
RA: Precisely. It has been about exploration. In a genuinely courageous way. "The Artist is Present" is certainly not the first time she has taken herself where few of us could venture. As for where she goes next, she did tell me that she thought that "The Artist is Present" might so change her that she can - like her idol Tehching Hsieh - just concentrate on life from now on. That seems to me extremely unlikely!
LD: How would you like to see young artists not yet set on any individual path respond to Marina and this "presence"?
RA: Well, certainly not by copying her! That would be to miss the whole point, but I know it will happen. The wonderful thing about Marina's work is that it gives us permission to do anything ... anything. If I had realized when I was a young artist that art at its best is the direct presence of the spiritual I would have lived an entirely different life. (Though when I was a young artist I had no grasp of the spiritual domain and would have laughed at such a suggestion, so there you go ...) I suppose it is the prerogative of young artists - and young people of any sort - to misunderstand things and make mistakes. That has been entirely forgotten about by the contemporary art market. Perhaps Marina's advantage was that when she started out in Belgrade there was no art market at all of any significance, so the importance of what she did as an artist had to be gauged in utterly different ways. That would be a good thing for young artists to take away from her example.
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