Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present

Praise to Brian (above sitting with Marina after getting in line at 1am) for texting me about going to MOMA today with his member discount! Today was the last day for Marina Abramovic's exhibition and I had an itch to sketch.

I started sketching the reproduced past performance where two nude performers stand as two pillars for you to walk between (above). Two bystanders started chatting it up: an older woman completely flabbergasted by the whole situation and an even older man in a chair sketching. I overheard their entire conversation and learned that he was in fact 82 years old! Amazing! He drew so well! So I started chatting with him, and learned that he used to be a sculpturer and had shows at the guggenheim & whitney at the age of 23. He liked to punctuate his sentences with: "How 'bout that!? Interesting!" He also lost a lot of money in the stock market. He gave me his address and number to keep in touch, along with oodles of advice about love and energy and life.

Oh, and he drew a picture of a dog, a star and a bird standing on a heart in my sketchbook. He also drew a picture of me, but unfortunately no photography allowed in the gallery :( It was really good. Honest.

Afterwards, I went to the room where Marina was sitting, but it was sooooo packed I escaped to the outside world.

David reminded me it was the last day of her performance so I hurried back inside and braved the mosh pit.

After 79 days of sitting in the MOMA from opening to closing, she arose & oh how the audience cheered! I was very proud to be standing there, witness to such a powerful performance.

read more about the exhibition here and here.