Matthew Akers: Marina Abramović
This feature-length documentary by Matthew Akers beautifully portrays Marina Abramović, an unforgettable artist who is capable of using herself as a tool for expressing modern art. Marina is Belgrade-born New Yorker and widely known for her exhibitions that exceed general norms, sometimes even physically hurting herself and others. This film is a powerful picture of Marina and her one-year’s thorough preparation for the Exhibition Artist is Present that took place in 2010 at MOMA (The Museum of Modern Art, New York).
Artist is Present is a 3 months long performance, where Marina would be sitting on a chair in a middle of an empty spacious room fully emotionless to offer a gaze to someone who would choose to sit on a chair across from her.
This performance became a huge success. People would wait more than 16 hours to get a possibility to look Marina in the eyes for couple of moments. It was the longest performance in Marina’s career and it demanded all the possible physical as well as emotional preparation from her. As she claimed herself: ‘The Hardest thing is to do something which is close to nothing’.
The film crew follows Marina for one year of preparation and 3 months of performing at MOMA. Moreover, there is also a strong romantic love side to this movie. Marina’s long year partner German performance artist Ulay is about to reunite with Marina and perform together once more.
This film has everything what a good story entails: a strong artistic value, wisdom, dreams that did and did not come true, unforgettable love story, drama, disappointment, hard work and above it all a lot of hope and genuine emotions.
Seen at Sundance 2012.
About the exhibition:
