Walking, Talking, Reacting: Performance Art in the Age of Oversharing

Image via New York Times. Photo by Suzanne DeChillo

One of the most e-mailed articles on the New York Times website the past couple of days has been a feature on the new Marina Abramovic show at MoMA. The show is a retrospective of her work over the past 40 years and in this it includes an array of Abramovic pieces that range from performance art to video work to the opportunity to see Abramovic in what is the longest stretch of time she has performed in a solo piece. The Abramovic piece presents museum goers with the opportunity to sit across from and participate in a silent exchange with the artist.

The article in the New York Times has touched on what has been an unfortunate result of the exhibition: touching. Many of the works in the Abramovic show feature nude performers who stand for long periods of time in the museum space. They are inactive works of art, statuesque and mute. A few select museum visitors who do not understand the barrier between a work of art and its audience have taken to touching the performers inappropriately. A touch on the butt. A suggestive whisper. An intentional brush against specific body parts. Just as one is not allowed to touch a painting or most sculpture within the museum walls, one should know that touching performers who are works of art is off limits. This is true, unless it has been deemed permissible to touch the work, a directive that would have to be communicated by the artist and approved by the performers. The touching in itself is an unfortunate human reaction by those who cannot control themselves, or do not wish to understand the art itself. It has not marred the show.

More interesting than this boundary crossing with the art is the fact that this is the second art exhibition to take place in New York in a short span of time in which human beings have been the art as well as the viewers of the art. The other show was the Tino Sehgal exhibition at the Guggenheim from January 29 until March 10, 2010. Seghal’s piece, entitled “This Progress,” consisted of a series of interactions, conversations between a group of “interpreters” who populated the spiraling ramp of the museum. Visitors to the museum first encountered a young child who asked them what they thought their definition of progress was? The child instructed the visitor to follow them, in essence, down the rabbit hole. One’s answer to the progress question was then communicated to a slightly older person, a teenager or a college-aged museum “interpreter.” The conversation picked up. One’s definition of progress was questioned, a philosophical element entered the space. The exhibition followed this pattern until at the end, near the top of the museum spiral, where an elder “interpreter” talked with museum goers of anything that seemed to relate to the wisdom that comes with age. The show was a big hit, mining the play and depth that could be found in unusually open conversation in a museum space. It opened New Yorkers up and wiped clean some of the stereotypes tourists might have about New Yorkers. It turned the idea of performance art on its head and unlike the Abramovic work it encouraged participation with the art work on a mass scale.

What is remarkable about both these exhibitions is that they have both born articles in which the art work has talked back, expressing its opinions about what it was or is like to be the art work. In the case of the Tino Seghal show, a New York Times article that published post-exhibition discussed the extreme exhaustion the participants felt. They worked long shifts, often having up to 70 brief conversations in a day. There was an overall sense that the work they put in was worth it and they had many poignant conversations with people from all over the world, but yet there was a distinct taxing aspect to working in the show. The Abramovic exhibition seems to be harnessed with the same complexity. Working as a piece of art can be exhausting (apparently the art work’s shifts at MoMA have been shortened due to fainting spells) and thankless at times. But in our current world of over-sharing, there also seems to be a habit of getting the art work’s perspective on what it was like, which is new for performance work of this sort. Given this voice provided to the artwork, I wonder how this will affect future performance work of this type. When we visit an exhibition in which human beings are the art work over the summer or next year, is the realization that this artwork can talk going to change our viewing experience? Does it change the work of art and the artist’s intentions, especially if the work is silent when we see it, as is the case with the Abramovic work? Are the works of art breaking an unwritten code of silence historically entitled  to the artist and his or her work? Does the voice of the art entering the sphere of discussion break down the relationship between artist, art, and viewer. In many ways, I think the answer is yes. Though it is imperative for the artwork in Abramovic’s show to speak up if they are being inappropriately touched by patrons, and thus have those patrons removed from the museum, it is not necessary for them to share this with the New York Times. This act changes the idea of viewing art that stays silent and still in the gallery space.

via At the Guggenheim, the Art Walked Beside You, Asking Questions – NYTimes.com.

via Some at MoMA Performance Art Show Forget ‘Look but Don’t Touch’ – NYTimes.com.