MoMA
Posts tagged ‘Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present’
Listening to Marina Abramović: Rhythm 10

When artist Marina Abramović and curator Klaus Biesenbach first met with the Publications team to discuss the catalogue that would accompany her exhibition at MoMA, Marina knew she wanted to create a book that offered a different kind of reading experience. Hoping to address the eternal challenge of capturing the complexity of live performance on the printed page, she proposed the addition of an audio component, which she felt would allow for a more personal, intimate, and experiential understanding of the work. What you hear in this video is a track from the resulting CD, which comes with the book.

Baroque Bones and Challenging Loans: How to Ship an Abramović Installation

Six thousand pounds of cow bones after cleaning at Skulls Unlimited.

In late 2008, six thousand pounds of cow bones sat boxed in a Dutch warehouse. Marina Abramović, whose retrospective is on view at MoMA, had requested that we ship the bones, a major component of her installation Balkan Baroque, far in advance of the exhibition. We could not have anticipated that the next fifteen months would involve our learning about bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), incineration plants in New Jersey, the dearth of slaughterhouses in the western United States, or that a place called Skulls Unlimited existed.

March 15, 2010  |  Collection & Exhibitions, Tech
Live-Streaming Marina Abramović: Crazy or Brave?

“We want to live-stream a silent woman, sitting still in a chair all day for three months.”—Paraphrased from a meeting a few weeks ago, followed by the sound of my hand hitting my forehead.

Screenshot from performance by Marina Abramović, MoMA, March 9, 2010

Screenshot from performance by Marina Abramović, MoMA, March 9, 2010

Working in a department that interfaces with the Internet (home of zany fun like Is This Art? and my new favorite site Selleck Waterfall Sandwich), you get used to hearing a lot of unusual ideas getting presented as Things We Need To Be Doing Right Away. I guess I should be used to it by now, since MoMA is a museum that has in its collection an alleged can of poop.