sundance

Marina Abramovic: the video game experience

In the overlapping center of a Venn diagram between the art and video game world is this 8-bit side-scrolling online game adaptation developed by Pippin Barr of Marina Abramović’s live installation, “The Artist Is Present,” which was presented earlier this year at MoMA. In one of the more buzzed about art exhibits this year, Abramović sat silent and still in the atrium of the MoMA, where visitors lined up for the opportunity to sit across from her, thus “becoming participants in the artwork.”

The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic

This past weekend marked the end of the Manchester International Festival, a biennial, artist-led event that has, in the past, played host to artists like Matthew Barney and Olafur Eliasson, among others. This year performance artist extraordinaire, Marina Abramović, took to the stage for a run of six theatrical performances of “The Life and Death of Marina Abramović.”

More at MoMA

Marina Abramovic’s astonishing retrospective and mesmerizing performance at the MoMA (reviewed here by Perrin and Patrick) has earned a lot of buzz, and I highly encourage you to visit, however while visiting be sure to also check out two interactive installations that will bring a smile and sense of wonderment. The first is Yin Xiuzhen’s extended van sculpture “Collective Subconscious” which the public can enter and “find a cozy refuge complete with low stools and soft pop music—a space that invites visitors to break the silence of the hushed gallery, reinventing it as a place for conversation and discussion.” The second piece is Ernesto Neto’s “Navedenga” where “visitors are invited inside its hollow chamber to engage their visual, tactile, and olfactory senses.” I went this past Saturday and the sensations felt at both installations must be experienced in person. After the jump are some photos.

Marina Abramovic at MoMA

In the MoMA’s Atrium Marina Abramovic sits at a wooden table dressed in a high-necked, long-sleeved navy blue dress that gathers in a pool of fabric at her feet. She’s lit on all sides by 5ks – big, bright, hot lights. Her face is serene and statuesque, her gaze completely focused, and you’re welcome to take the chair on the other side of the table and sit with her for as long as you like.

Meanwhile the rest of her retrospective, “The Artist is Present,” is happening upstairs, and really, it’s a happening.