A mild spring night in Soho.
A long day with Marina Abramovic at MOMA initially left me feeling ambivalent about the fact that much of the retrospective is a recreation of performances that took place in the 70s. Some of the performances unfortunately invite direct comparison, and the current version doesn't quite live up to the original. I have similar problems with movie remakes, and it took me many years to come to terms with it, at least to some degree. Why remake a classic? It almost never works, and you have to be very much convinced of your own ability to improve on a classic, but I guess this is not the point. I can now accept a remake as maybe 20% homage, 40% usage of proven material, and 40% of creating an 'updated' version for a new generation of viewers who might have never seen the original. The same is true for an artist retrospective, and it is quite revealing to see today's 15 and 16-year old kids react to nudity in an exhibition setting. But the discomfort seems universal, in fact, the distance between the naked man and woman facing each other is increased to about 2 feet in the current exhibition. The label informs us that during the original performance the distance was about half that, and squeezing through the naked doorway really meant squeezing. Today -that is, if you can muster up the courage, you can conceivably get through without touching either of the two. Apparently most people - whether male or female - prefer facing the woman. The Artist is Present is another component of the show where Marina Abramovic is sitting silently in MOMA's atrium at a table for the entire duration of the exhibition. A physical and mental tour de force, visitors are invited to sit across the artist, and join in the silent conversation. Abramovic wears a long, red (sometimes blue) tunic-like robe which somehow adds to the monumental quality of the performance -unlike you are me, and Snuggie associations make their way into the mind, quickly braking the spell.... All in all, it is very much worth seeing.

The Artist is Present, Marina Abramovic at MOMA.