Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present is still going on face-to-face challenging herself and the audience in this intense performance. I still have not made it to the MoMA yet, but was so inspired and touched by these beautiful portraits of individuals who were all “present” with Marina that I wanted to share some of them here with our readers.
Here is a comment by one sitter Paco Blancas, who went back to sit for more than 10 times.
I think Marina’s piece has a very strong magnetism. It’s hard to explain but it’s almost like you feel this force, it draws you in, like a magnet. Sitting with her is a transforming experience—it’s luminous, it’s uplifting, it has many layers, but it always comes back to being present, breathing, maintaining eye contact. It’s an amazing journey to be able to experience and participate in the piece.
Also, I love meeting people in line. I’ve met a lot of people and have made a lot of new friends, many of them artists, but really all sorts of people. I keep in touch with them and we e-mail constantly to talk about our experiences. It’s like a little community of people who come to participate in the piece.
Although some might praise photographer and filmmaker Darren Almond for withstanding the test of time during his all-night exposure shoots, the social and political barriers of obtaining rights to document rare footage in foreign countries, and the challenges of producing his works in difficult-to-reach locations, his accomplishments are still somewhat unimpressive compared to the awe-inspiring activities and rituals of his subjects. In Sometimes Still, a six-screen video installation on view at Matthew Marks, Almond’s camera follows a monk through dark mountain trails as he trains to complete the process of Kaihōgyō.
Although Kaihōgyō is a seven-year process where the monk trains to ultimately gain Buddhahood and discover a higher state of consciousness, the camera follows one of these “marathon monks” as he performs a central ritual that involves walking extraordinary distances for hundreds of days at a time. Upon entering the gallery, one must take a few moments to adjust to the overwhelming darkness of the gallery and the contrast of the five large screens. The screens are overlapping each other in such a way that all five are viewed at once, both allowing the viewer to experience the videos fully (as the screens overcome the viewer and seem to wrap around panoramically), and also distracting the viewer (as one cannot possibly watch each screen at the same time since one will always remain in the periphery). The screens are taller than the average viewer, and rest on the ground, further bringing the viewer’s body into the video. This strange effect transports the viewer into the video; one is soon on the mountain trail following the monk on his surreal quest in the moonlight.
Uneasy at first by the darkness and imposing size of the screens, one might build up the courage to venture back behind the main screens to see what else the dark gallery might hold. In the rear, another smaller screen reveals to us a black and white video of a more mature — perhaps enlightened— Buddhist monk tending to a fire in a temple. Do not be surprised if you suddenly feel more at ease in the darkness of the gallery, or perhaps more courageous than the new arrivals who are sheepishly standing near the entrance/exit of the gallery.
When I was told that Alva Noto would be performing at the Kitchen last night, I braved it to Chelsea just in time before he started his set. Carsten Nicolai a.k.a. Alva Noto is a minimalist sound artist, post-techno electronic musician. I started following his work since his early collaborations with Sakamoto Ryuichi. What I didn’t realize is that Mr. Nicolai also produces visuals. Last night’s performance was mind-blowing, literally, the heavily broken beats, blips, and prolonged static are sounds from faxes, modems and the telephone. They were in sync with the intense visuals which was manipulated real-time by Mr. Nicolai himself. There is something quite ecstatically surreal in this work in which he uses old technologies (with recordings by poet Anne-James Chaton) that throws you off the chair. It is the art of minimal simulation to the max. The show is presented by the Pace Gallery. More photos to come.
Liquid Door, the first solo exhibition in the U. S. by artists Hilario Isola and Matteo Norzi, has many moving parts, but a permeable membrane, the liquid door is its center piece. The liquid door refers to the fragile interface which unites man with the sea, namely, a surface between air and water, formed by the air pressure present in an underwater dome called the Starfish House as realized by Jacques Cousteau in 1965 as an experimental underwater dwelling.
Isola and Norzi pay homage to the Cousteau and six crew members known as “oceanauts” in a multi-faceted archaeological exploration of the roles of human imagination, storytelling, and fiction in creating meaning through the Liquid Door project, rooted in a 1995 cargo ship journey the artists made to Alexandria, Egypt. While the “real show” took place at a tank in the New York Aquarium, a living, albeit fabricated environment which stands for a conceptual looking glass, Art in General recently hosted an opening for an exhibition which featured Cousteau’s documentary film Le Monde Sans Soleil, coincidentally reclaimed by the Italian artists in an East Village bookstore. The film treats audiences to scenes of domesticity which play out in the Starfish House which include the oceanauts enjoying multi-course meals and cigarette smoking.
Additionally, the exhibition included archival, C-prints from the Coney Island Aquarium with images of Norzi submerged in the aquarium outfitted with a sculpture representational of the liquid door, an acrylic aquarium, and other “relics”. Princeton Professor D. Graham Burnett gave a talk about the historical context of exploration in the 1960’s when there was debate about whether the future of self-contained living environments would be underwater or in space.
The New York Aquarium will feature a Liquid Door Tour on May 25, 2010 for members. Ultimately, the art project will recreate such a door on the very site where it started, aboard the ruins of the Starfish House, situated on the floor of the Red Sea.
Looking at Ray Sell’s images is like walking into an American vintage pop culture magazine. It’s my first encounter with Mr. Sell’s work, so I have a fresh eye for what’s up at Leo Kesting (been wanting to visit the gallery for ages). I was not disappointed to see Ray Sell’s mutedly vivid collages raising questions about American boyhood rising into manhood. Perhaps some of the imagery comes from his own experiences. Nonetheless, the subjects are stylishly positioned and he seems to work within a nostalgic color palette. Although the images that Mr. Sell uses are only a few decades old, it feels like some strange distant world. Television, pin-up ladies, cowboys, guns and Miller-Coors beer. Just about sums up the American (macho) “high life” before cyberspace came into the picture.
If you haven’t already seen the 2010 Whitney Biennial, now is your chance. The Whitney has announced that it will remain open for 24 hours from May 26, 12am Wed. night to May 28, 11:59pm Fri. “Open All Day and Night” was conceived by American conceptual artist Michael Asher as a part of this year’s Biennial. Perhaps it is meant to act as a closing ceremony for the show, which I think the Whitney deserves a respectable applause for granting this to come through. How many reputable cultural institutions would allow this type of conceptual work to happen? Granted that this is such a rare happening, I will definitely join the night owls and become a part of the piece. And cheers to Mr. Asher!
The New York Academy of Fine Arts opens their 2010 MFA Thesis Exhibition tonight with a chance to meet and greet new talents in the fine art world. (above painting by Hudson Holly)
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