the human heartbeat) to which the audience can relate. Web. What if we consider Abramovic’s previous performances and her use of stylization of the body? Director Robert Wilson can relate: “In my pieces everything is slowed down. Does Gender Affect an Audience’s Perception? Abramovic offers another point of view: “they’re sitting there; I’m just a mirror of their own self” (“The Artist Is Present”). Writing Consultants are available for online tutoring for all CAS WR classes. As Simone de Beauvoir claims, “one is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman” (qtd. (Yugoslav, born 1946) 2010. In addition to arguing that gender is a social construction, gender theorist Judith Butler argues, “To be female is[…] a facticity which has no meaning, but to be a woman is to have become a woman, to compel the body to conform to an historical idea of ‘woman,’ to induce the body to become a cultural sign” (522). This “human heartbeat”—in other words, shared humanity—creates vulnerability, allowing for a more “personal and intimate” experience of the performance (Bogart 65). New York: Routledge, 2007. All rights reserved. This is the currently selected item. Further, prolonged eye contact causes vulnerability; one audience member commented that eye contact is strange because “most of us are afraid of it and Marina is offering it infinitely” (“The Artist is Present”). Judging by this, the “other world” must be a state of consciousness created by the performance’s length of time. In the context of a near-death experience, peoples’ thoughts race because of a natural human reaction to the situation. Abramovic does so in “The Artist Is Present” when she slows down time by incorporating very little interaction into a long time span. The audience as well as Abramovic accept this vulnerability. Staring and sitting in a chair—the only action taken by Abramovic—can be performed by both men and women. In fact, Abramovic’s ex-lover, Ulay, (Frank Uwe Laysiepen) sits across from Abramovic, and they both begin to sob and reach for each other’s hands after some time (“The Artist Is Present”). Moreover, the vulnerability created by Abramovic in her audience allows her to reveal suppressed sadness within the participant. The act is so simple that the audience has the time to analyze its simplicity: we are both here, and we are both human; we share that with each other. Matthew Akers and Jeff Dupre. Because the audience cannot identify womanhood with Abramovic directly with respect to her actions, the audience is likely to not seek compassion in the performer and emotionally respond directly due to gender. Bogart would argue that this contrast between time span and interaction allows for one’s thoughts to race at said “ten-fold velocity.” An eleven year-old boy described his experience with mysterious nostalgia: “It’s like some other world . One may consider that the audience may be more inclined to seek compassion in Abramovic due to her gender; however, Butler’s argument about how we construct gender counters the fact, because Abramovic’s act is gender-neutral. Farther into the galleries, stand-ins for the artist occupy various poses, including one in which a naked performer perches spread-eagled on a bicycle seat mounted high on a wall, in imitation of Leonardos universal man. Maybe museums have merged with the age of reality TV, where everyones life is art. Often times, people start to cry and become overwhelmed. We will later examine the extent to which this “silent examination,” combined with the observer’s vulnerability, emotionally affects the audience. Time became greatly expanded” (128). Anthropologist Victor Turner argues that gender is a “social action [that] requires a performance which is repeated” (qtd. in Butler 526). Bogart uses an anecdote in which a Swiss geologist examined the mental states of several people who had experienced near-death falls in the Alps. With regards to this, one cannot argue that vulnerability causes these responses, as throughout “The Artist Is Present,” people break down during longer performances, and the time contrast is what causes the metacognitive thought process leading to vulnerability, allowing for a self-reflective thought process in the presence of Abramovic. Butler, Judith. . in Butler 519). Abramovic controls her audience in this manner by contrasting time length with size of interaction. Amelia Jones. If it’s going to take me five minutes to pick up a spoon, first of all it’s going to be painful just to control it. in Bogart 133). Read the instructor’s introduction Nevertheless, Abramovic’s strong use of time and vulnerability as tools in performance art overshadow gender, evoking a powerful response in her audience during “The Artist Is Present.”. When you put yourself in the position of the audience, you are sitting across from a woman, and that is the extent of the sexuality you encounter throughout the piece. How could one ignore Abramovic’s beautiful womanly face, her long black hair? We can easily categorize “womanly acts” because we construct them as a society. Regardless of her intentions, we cannot completely discard gender as a contributing factor of human interaction. That Abramovic’s show is a hit proves that art is bigger than moralism, and that the audience is more open and more mature than ever. Marina Abramović, The Artist is Present. Students can find additional information in the Undergraduate Student Guide and Graduate & Professional Student Guide. It is especially thrilling that no Mayor Giuliani equivalent showed up to close the institution because it offended us or him. “Time.” And Then, You Act: Making Art in an Unpredictable World. According to Bogart, because of the shared humanity between performer and audience, vulnerability surrounds the performance; the audience member begins to carry out self-reflection when she sees this commonality in the performance. The vulnerability of the participant proves integral in the emotional response of the participant, but could not exist without Abramovic’s creative use of contrasting time span with minimal interaction. Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Cleaning the museum—maintenance art, Unlock Art: Frank Skinner on Performance Art. Viewers can choose to pass between them. In fact, set design removed the table that was originally present between Abramovic and her audience to increase this vulnerability factor. The audience members subconsciously analyze their own thoughts and feelings (the metacognitive … We have both genders present in this situation that emotionally react to the performance; therefore, there is little possibility of gender having a substantial effect on the vulnerability and thus emotional response of the audience because the act itself is not gendered. The audience as well as Abramovic accept this vulnerability. But its also very compelling. Using gender as a lens through which to examine “The Artist Is Present” proves especially useful because Abramovic uses the body as a medium for her performance act, and Butler depends on the body as a central aspect of her argument. but it heightens the seriousness…and the severe nature of the piece” (“The Artist Is Present”). Although Bogart’s pieces involve theatre rather than performance art, they share a “performing” aspect; thus, their sources are useful for examining Abramovic’s performance. It’s now 44 days (and counting) since I visited the opening of Marina Abramović’s major retrospective, ‘The Artist is Present’, at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Meanwhile, visitors on the sixth floor have been avoiding, brushing up against, or ogling Imponderabilia, a work in which two naked people face each other in a narrow doorway. Maybe its just institutions fighting for market share. Abramovic never asks anyone to stay for any length of time, but we can see that this audience member believes so; because of this, we see an established connection between Abramovic and her audience. Abramovic herself, either alone or with her onetime partner Ulay, has road-tested all of these borderline-masochistic activities, among many others. Bogart, Anne. . The manner of the body’s materiality being fundamentally “dramatic” expresses that what we put on socially, mentally, and physically constructs a gender. Perhaps participatory sculpture extends celebrity to everyone. To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser. . . Picking up a spoon normally takes a short moment, but stretching this action out to five minutes exponentially increases your awareness of the action. . Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting. Print. To understand the significance of this question, let’s turn to Judith Butler and her notion of gender. Marina Abramović. In the case of “The Artist Is Present,” because the audience member can only think in the given situation, she may be wondering about Abramovic’s thoughts too, which leaves her subject to Abramovic’s silent examination. People in general are more likely to become vulnerable in the presence of a woman because of the “historical idea” that women are caring and motherly figures in society. Download this essay. What could Abramovic be saying about gender by straying from her usual gendered appearance in her performance art? So what if a “manly” male is the performer? Its narcissistic, exhibitionistic work, and it has brought out the crowds own narcissism and exhibitionism, in a self-fulfilling feedback loop. The woeful reactions of sobbing audience members elucidate this seriousness and severe nature. According to Bogart, time is a tool used to control how an audience perceives a performance, which exposes Abramovic’s use of time to affect her subjects. she transforms us as a result” (“The Artist Is Present”).
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