Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present

For a three-month period during 2010, Serbian-born performance artist Marina Abramović sat on one of two facing chairs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. During museum hours, the artist would gaze steadily at whoever sat in the opposite chair (any visitor to the exhibit was welcome to participate). Attracting over 750,000 attendees, the show also featured a career retrospective of the artist, with videos and live re-performances of five of her pieces by 30 young artists. Abramović's feat of endurance is the centerpiece of this documentary by Matthew Akers and Jeff Dupre, which explores her controversial body of work, along with the aesthetic and administrative challenges of preparing a major art show. Interviews with associates, friends, and art experts are interwoven with clips of several pieces from Abramović's nearly four decades as an active performer, many of which include self-harm and exhibitionism (in a typical piece, a nude Abramović runs repeatedly into a wall). German artist Ulay was Abramović's lover and creative partner for several years, and their early work, separation, and eventual reconciliation are used here to effectively bridge Abramović's past to the present. In the MoMA performance, Abramović is hypnotizing to her audience, moving many participants to tears with her gaze; in fact, the intense emotional responses of these people are often as shocking and seductive as the artist herself. Highly recommended. (K. Cruver)