Marina Abramović

Josef Braun / josef@vueweekly.com

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There are artists that heighten our awareness of time to the point where the veneer of civilized time/drudgery time/channel-surfing time falls away and you feel your own organs at work, the thoughts of those around you, and the breath of every leaf on every tree. Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović holds a place on that list of artists, which might also include Andrei Tarkovsky, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Jorge Luis Borges. But those artists work in cinema, photography and literature respectively. Abramović is a performance artist, and Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present, Matthew Akers' documentary on Abramović's recent MoMA Retrospective and work of the same name, is partly about legitimizing performance as a serious form. It isn't theatre, it isn't sculpture (though one could argue that it's kinda both) and there's nothing you can buy; it's people doing stuff, stuff that at a glance might seem absurd or merely provocative. But, with Abramović's work, a glance won't suffice. You need to be present, to pass time. Or you can watch Akers' film, which, made very much from the inside of Abramović's cultivated mythology, goes a long way toward getting a sense of being there.

After spending much of her career existing rather marginally (the retrospective includes the van she lived in for years with her former partner and collaborator Ulay), Abramović reached a point where legitimacy became important. "I'm 63," she says early in the film, "I don't want to be alternative anymore." I think she got her wish. During the 700 hours she spent in a chair staring at people in MoMA's atrium in 2010 (she sat, without ever rising, every hour the museum was open for three months), an estimated 750 000 visitors sat with her. What could be read as a self-portrait or a stunt (much of Abramović's work has pushed and punished her body) actually functions as a mirror—The Artist Is Present is about the audience. And watching it happen in Akers' film makes for an incredibly moving experience. Art can be just this: presence, an invitation, a reflection, a way of being still, of feeling your entire life happen all at once, there, in a public space, surrounded by others, as this crazy, courageous, radiantly charismatic woman sits before you and lets it all be.

Metro Cinema at the Garneau

Marina Abramović
Opens Fri, Jul 13 � Thu, Jul 19
Directed by: Matthew Akers

Showtimes »

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Marina Abramović

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