Art, is that you?

BY TONY BOUZA

The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA to devotees) is arguably (and I’d argue for it) America’s Cultural Avant Garde.

There is where we expect art’s boundaries and artistic freedom to be expanded. Cutting edge, controversial and the bete noire of censors everywhere, it is a precious oasis for intellectual refreshment.

Now an exhibit has ended after 100 seven-hour performances (opening to closing the doors) called “The Artist is Present.” The thing is simplicity personified—or, is it? It invites dismissiveness and derision.

The idea is that the artist, Marina Abramovic, a 64 year-old native of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, sits alone in a simple chair in the middle of a square, vacant except for a chair facing her about six feet away. There a member of the audience, who was probably waiting for hours, sits across from her. The artist stares silently but intently straight ahead.

The visitor is free to stare, anywhere, and can remain for as long as seven hours or as short as a few seconds. Nothing is said. Obviously those awaiting do not appreciate marathoners. One clasped his hands in front of his chest as if to burst into adoring song.

Entering visitors pass two models flanking the doorway—a male and female—naked. Their reported experiences are worth a mention. Both reported having their bare feet stepped on by incautious clients, a various mix of self-absorption, arrogance and high education—in addition to being, like me, culture vultures. The females fainted often enough to require their being spelled every 75 minutes. The male models reported countless erections rubbed against the backs of their hands. The women reported pinches and caresses. Ah, New York Cultural Life! And that’s it.

Now closed, the artist has a history of performance art, frequently featuring fairly atrocious violence (stabbing herself, being pummeled by a partner—you, I hope, get the picture).

Is it art?
I must confess I did not see the exhibit and count it as one of my life’s regrettable failures. The anti-Semite, fascist poet, Ezra Pound, said, “The artist is the antennae of the race.” I believe it. Artists pick up our signals and transmit them to us—who we are, why we do and other questions central to our existence.
And this show?

Imagine Manhattan—a place of palpable isolation. Alienation. Loneliness. The furtive hunt for connections in a place where eye contact is a felony and Minnesota Nice doesn’t work.

The artist is inviting the most intimate connection. Does the human employ eye contact during coitus? What is it about looking deeply and intently into someone else’s eye that feels obscenely intrusive?

These and other questions are, I think and hope, what Ms Abramovic is about. As to the question in this trivial effort’s title, my answer is, “Yup!”