No art, just the artist?
Visualising participants in performance artist Marina Abramović’s 2010 work
This piece contains brief descriptions of violence that some readers may find upsetting.
What do you consider art?
I’ve been spoiled by the chance to explore magnificent pieces of oil, ink, and sculpture shown in museums across continents. But recently, I’ve discovered a less prominent medium among the limitless categories of creative expression that that term encompasses— performance.
Performance pieces are works created through artists’ or participants’ movements or actions. They’re characterised by their impermanence and “live”-ness, making them one of the hardest types of art to document.
The first performance artist I heard about was the self-proclaimed “grandmother“ of the medium, Marina Abramović. She grew up in Serbia more than seven decades ago and remains an active and high-profile figure in the art world.
When I first explored Abramović’s work, I was most captivated by one of her most daring pieces: “Rhythm 0” (1974).
This, the last instalment in her “Rhythm” series, took place in a gallery in Naples, where the artist laid out 72 objects on a table next to her standing figure and instructed the audience to do as they pleased to her immobile body for the proceeding six hours. Initially playful (someone offered her a rose from the selection of objects, for example), onlookers grew progressively reckless, removing all her clothing and piercing her skin with sharp instruments present on the table. The performance ended when one member of the crowd inserted a singular bullet into a pistol (both objects were provided by the artist) and held the weapon to Abramović’s head, wrapping the artist’s fingers around the trigger. The intense disbelief I felt when first reading descriptions of this work reminded me of the Stanford prison experiment, in which study subjects conducted themselves in similarly cruel ways when subject to few restrictions.
Fortunately for many, Abramović’s pieces are not exclusively violent, nor do they contend chiefly with death. In a bid to choreograph the ultimate romantic gesture, for example, she planned in the 1980s to meet her then-lover Ulay (also a performance artist) in the middle of the Great Wall of China and propose. Eight years of seeking permission for this piece from authorities coincided with a decline in the pair’s relationship, and after reaching the point they intended to on the Wall in 1988, they embraced and parted ways.
The piece I’m discussing today may seem insignificant in comparison. In 2010, Abramović visited New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to stage a retrospective of her previous works. This meant displaying documentation from “Rhythm 0”, her Great Wall walk, and dozens of other pieces, as well as conducting duplicated performances from her artistic past.
But one of those works was new. Titled “The Artist is Present”, this exhibit sought to push the limits of the artist’s physical and psychological capabilities as the longest single solo piece she had ever performed. For 716 hours across three months during the museum’s opening hours, Abramović would sit, unmoving, in a hard-backed wooden chair, inviting audience members to sit across from her for as long as they liked and lock her gaze. There was no mortal danger or tireless trek this time — only the task of maintaining her composure for more than seven hours each day.
Members of the public waited in line for a once-in-a-lifetime intimate encounter with the artist. And there were VIPs too, friends of Abramović’s and big names in the art world, many of whom were ushered to the front of the line or given priority before the museum’s official opening time.
The “sitters”, as they came to be known, ranged from curious toddlers to the elderly. Observer accounts suggest that there were more women than men. Among them was a newlywed, someone with an apparent visual impairment, someone who looked like they had just graduated, and members of the MoMA’s gallery and security staff. Those who sat more than once became notorious; a local makeup artist, Paco Biancas, joined Abramović more than 14 times throughout the exhibit. Others spent an entire day with her, exercising their own endurance.
On the first day of the performance, the third sitter slid into the chair across Abramović, his gaze met with tears and an indescribable wave of emotion from the artist.
It was Ulay. Watch their moment together here.
The visualisation
For this complete visual oversimplification of a nuanced exhibit, I focused on two variables: length of time seated and sitters’ visible facial expressions. I gathered both types of data points from the performance’s official photographer, Marco Anelli, who remained on-site for the entire work, taking portraits of each participant and noting how many minutes they spent seated. I’ve linked his entire album below; my willingness to sift through each of the ~1,500 portraits to collect my data should be a testament to their overwhelming humanity and genius.
Now, here is my chart:
Insights
Reading this image from left to right demonstrates substantial variation in the number of sitters present each day, with the greatest number understandably appearing in the last few days of the exhibit. On two separate instances, one sitter took up most or all of that day’s performance, moved to tears both times. Though I did not statistically test for the following, I found it fascinating that participants who were photographed smiling tended to sit for shorter periods of time than those who were photographed crying.
My hypothesis? The short-stayers fulfilled their desire to see a celebrity, and were therefore happy with themselves, while those who stayed longer became moved by the reflections of their own lives found in the artist’s gaze.
Yet, despite my endless respect for Abramović’s discipline and endurance, I return to my original question. Was this art?
Without the artist’s international fame, would the exhibit have exerted the same effect? Did the sitters’ skew towards privileged and elite figures, as well as the next-level access granted to VIPs, “cheapen” the exhibit? Was this, instead, simply a Houdini-esque act of endurance, or a social experiment suitable for researcher analysis? Had this format been adapted for a sidewalk right outside the MoMA, would that performance have been art?
Though unable to address these questions, I know one thing for sure: what wouldn’t I give to live one subway ride away from the MoMA in 2010 with the awareness of Abramović’s work that I have today?
Notes
- The visualisation in this article was inspired by David Hart’s piece.
- I used Google Sheets to enter and clean my data, and moved to R’s ggplot2 and ggthemes packages to generate this plot.
- Here is an insightful interview with Abramović about her performance.
Thank you for reading! I would welcome your suggestions for the design of my chart, especially in terms of colour. I think it’s a little too crowded right now.
