"Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present" at the MoMA

NYC's Museum of Modern Art is currently exhibiting a performance retrospective that traces the career of bountiful Yugoslavian artist Marina Abramović. "The Artist is Present" (which runs through May 31st) displays fifty works that span over four decades - including the artist's early interventions and sound pieces, video works, installations, photographs, solo performances and collaborative performance made with Ulay (AKA Uwe Laysiepen).

The exhibition marks three important "firsts" (one for the museum and two for the artist). These include: the first time the MoMA has devoted a retrospective to a living artist; the first live re-performances of Abramović's works by other people ever to be performed in a museum setting; and a new piece by the artist that marks the longest original solo performance Abramović has ever created and executed.

In order to allow visitors the chance the experience the timelessness of the works in the exhibition, all performances in "the Artist is Present" will take place throughout the entire duration of the exhibition - starting before the museum opens each day and continuing until after it closes.

Additionally, a chronological installation of the artist's work will run concurrently (on the sixth floor of the MoMA), revealing different modes of representing, documenting and exhibiting Abramović's ephemeral, time-based and media-based works.

Click here to read more about the exhibition (and to view Abramović's first performance)

Click here for related exhibitions at the MoMA

Marina Abramović's First Performance Artwork

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 10, Part 2 | Photograph: Dezan Poznanovic, © Marina Abramović

Marina Abramović is one of the most prominent performance artists of our time. Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1946, she began her career in the early 1970s and has continued to be active over three decades. She has described herself as the “grandmother of performance art”.

Abramović’s work explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. Her first performance, entitled Rhythm 10, was in 1973 and performed at a festival in Edinburgh. Like many of her performances, it explored elements of ritual and gesture.

As stated by the artist:

Preparation
I lay a sheet of white paper on the floor. I lay twenty knives of different shapes and sizes on the floor. I place two cassette recorders with microphones on the floor.

Performance
I switch on the first cassette recorder. I take the knife and plunge it, as fast as I can, into the flesh between the outstretched fingers of my left hand. After each cut, I change to a different knife. Once all the knives (all the rhythms) have been used, I rewind the tape. I listen to the recording of the first performance. I concentrate. I repeat the first part of the performance. I pick up the knives in the same sequence, adhere to the same rhythm and cut myself in the same places. In this performance, the mistakes of the past and those of the present are synchronous. I rewind the same tape and listen to the dual rhythm of the knives. I leave.