Dr. Kristen Hutchinson is a contract instructor in Art History at the University of Alberta and a visual artist and independent curator. She co-founded the artist\/curator collective\u00a0fast & dirty<\/span>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n For the duration of her retrospective at New York\u2019s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), from March 14 until May 31, 2010, Marina Abramovi\u0107 sat on a wooden chair every day during the hours the museum was open. The performance, titled\u00a0The Artist is Present, garnered much public attention and press, enacting elements that have been integral to Abramovi\u0107\u2019s artist practice since she began doing performance art pieces in the 1970s: duration, endurance, silence, and a focus upon viewer interaction and participation.1\u00a0What follows is a reflection upon my personal experience of Abramovi\u0107\u2019s\u00a0The Artist is Present\u00a0performance.<\/p>\n Entering the mezzanine of MOMA on April 16, I was delighted to see people waiting in line to get their chance to sit across from the well-known performance artist. Having chosen to learn as little as possible in advance about the performance, I was unaware of who was permitted to enter the demarked space where Abramovi\u0107 sat, or whether it was the artist or the visitor who determined the length of the stay in the chair across from her.\u00a0Before my trip to New York, I had decided that if anyone could sit with her, I was determined to do so. With this in mind, I entered the line and sat down on the cold concrete floor; I remained in line for four and a half hours.<\/p>\n Each participant could sit across from Abramovi\u0107 for as long as she or he chose, thus making it impossible to know when your turn would come. Every participant was recorded with a photograph.2\u00a0The process of waiting in line became an important part of the piece.\u00a0 The conversations that occurred between me and the other waiting participants made the waiting bearable and gave us time to discuss the piece amongst ourselves.\u00a0 Beside me was a Chilean performance artist who had recently moved to New York and this was her third time participating in the piece. On the other side of me were two women from Greece and a British woman who had travelled to New York together. Beside the Chilean woman was a writer from the\u00a0New York Post\u00a0who wrote article about his participation in the piece. In this article, Reed Tucker interviews Camille Announ, who we watched sitting with Abramovi\u0107 for ninety minutes.3\u00a0We called the participant interviewed by Tucker \u201cthe angry guy\u201d because he sat with his arms firmly crossed and waves of hostility appeared to emanate off his body. If people sat for too long, others in the line became restless and began making negative judgements about what was perceived as overly prolonged participation.<\/p>\n The day dragged on, and it was finally the\u00a0New York Post\u00a0journalist\u2019s turn. \u201cOnly two more people until my turn,\u201d I told myself. I began to get very nervous. The enclosure around Abramovi\u0107, demarked by a line of tape and four huge bright lights, was large and hundreds of people milled around the space throughout the day. You could not enter into the performance space unless you were going to sit across from the artist, and I had seen a number of people whisked away by security guards during the day for wandering into the enclosure. I tried to calm my nerves by reminding myself that I had participated in performance art pieces before, including a six-hour performance at the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, and a twelve-hour performance in one of the lobbies at the Epcor Centre of Performing Arts in Calgary, Alberta. Because it was nearing closing time, I promised the three women sitting in the line after me that I would make my stay brief, so they too would get a chance. I intended to sit there for five to ten minutes.<\/p>\n When it was finally my turn, the security guard told me the rules, which was unnecessary, since I had heard him repeat them to other participants; nevertheless, I listened and nodded my head: You are not allowed to speak, you have to remain in the chair, you cannot put your hands up on the table, and you cannot bring anything with you. Between participants, Abramovi\u0107 would a break for about a minute to stretch in the chair and close her eyes. As she raised her head, I was allowed to enter into the space. It was the end of the day, and it had been a particularly long one for Abramovi\u0107, since she had been there for a little under nine hours. Her eyes looked red and tired. The\u00a0New York Postjournalist had told me that he didn\u2019t feel that she acknowledged his presence at all, as if she wasn\u2019t even there. However, I did not find that to be true of my experience.<\/p>\n One does not usually sit across from someone and stare at her or him without speaking for a long period of time, and at first, I was a little unsettled by this lack of verbal communication. Secondly, I was a little star struck.\u00a0 \u201cI am sitting across from Marina Abramovi\u0107,\u201d I kept telling myself over and over in my head. As a contemporary art historian, I had taught her work to my students many times, and my recent forays into performance art had made me admire her even more. I thought that I would be overly aware of being watched by the crowds that continually mill around the perimeters of the performance space, but this was not the case. I was struck by how tired she looked and thus found myself trying to consciously send her positive energy, and then it felt as if energy was being sent back to me. I began to understand why so many people had cried while sitting across from her, or had sat there for hours on end because it was, to my surprise, quite a profound experience in that you become completely present in that moment.\u00a0 Perhaps it was the waiting, or the atmosphere, or the simple act of just looking at someone and trying to communicate without words, but everything except that wordless communication faded away. Time became irrelevant and despite being surrounded by crowds, I was entirely focused upon looking intently at just one other person.\u00a0 This kind of focus is not an experience one typically gets to have in everyday life. When I finally pried myself away, a surprisingly difficult task, I was told by the women behind me in the line that I had sat there for over twenty minutes. I was shocked, as I had lost all track of time, and it was only remembering the promise that I made to them that had got me out of that chair. I went to stand with the onlookers; some people came up to me to ask me what it had been like.<\/p>\n After looking at my photograph on the MOMA website several days later, I discovered that it was day thirty-three of Abramovi\u0107\u2019s performance, when I walked into the enclosed, overly-lit space to sit across a wooden table from this artist whom I deeply respect. The website also informed me that I had sat there for twenty-six minutes. Abramovi\u0107 would continue to sit there, every day, all day, for another month and a half.<\/p>\n Kristen Hutchinson sitting with Maria Abramovi\u0107; Photo by Karen Alexander<\/em><\/p>\n Endnotes<\/p>\n 1\u00a0For press about Abramovi\u0107\u2019s\u00a0The Artist is Present\u00a0performance, and further information about Abramovi\u0107\u2019s oeuvre, see Holland Cotter, \u201cMarina Abramovi\u0107: The Artist is Present: Performance Art Preserved, in the Flesh.\u201d\u00a0The New York Times, March 11, 2010:\u00a0http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/03\/12\/arts\/design\/12abromovic.html<\/a>; Brian Holmes, \u201cThe Artist is Present.\u201d May 26, 2010:\u00a0http:\/\/turbulence.org\/blog\/2010\/05\/29\/the-artist-is-present-marina-abramovic-online<\/a>; and Arthur Danto, et. al. Marina Abramovi\u0107: The Artist is Present. exh. cat. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2010.<\/p>\n 2\u00a0Images of the participants and information about Abramovi\u0107\u2019s performance can be viewed at:\u00a0http:\/\/www.moma.org\/interactives\/exhibitions\/2010\/marinaabramovic\/<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/KristenAbromovic.jpg\" "\\"OLYMPUS")
<\/a><\/p>\n