Marina Abramović at Sean Kelly: Has Her Fame Become an ......During Marina Abramović's now-famous...

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Marina Abramović at Sean Kelly: Has HerFame Become an Artistic Obstacle?

B e n D a v i s , F r i d a y , O c t o b e r 2 4 , 2 0 1 4

Participants sign up at the opening of MarinaAbramović's Generator at Sean Kelly

Photo: Patrick McMullen

During Marina Abramović's now-famous staring-contest performance atMoMA a few years ago, The Artist Is Present, many visitors broke down

weeping as they gazed into her eyes. I think this phenomenon was one

part authentic catharsis, one part media-generated hysteria, as the

whole thing became a scene and people competed against each other

to out-feel and out-emote each other. Abramović's new performanceproject, Generator, marks her return to New York after The Artist Is

Present and is also the first performance-based piece at her longtime

gallery, Sean Kelly, since The House With the Ocean View of 2002, which

made performance art that season's must-have accessory via its cameo

on Sex in the City. However, somehow I don't think anyone will be

breaking down and weeping during Generator. Except possibly if they

physically smack into each other.

Here is what to expect: You show up, wait in a long line of

Abramović fans, sign a waver, and then—evoking the tense excitementof airport security or the vulnerability of a trip to the gym—leave your

keys, phone, and other valuables in a locker, before an Abramović-trained guide equips you with a blindfold and noise-cancelling

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headphones, and then leads you down a corridor and deposits you in a

space. There you stand, amid a crowd of others (no more than a modest

68 at a time!) in a similar state. Occasionally you bump up against

another person as you can wander to explore the space. Or you simply

stand in blind-and-deaf silence, and let people politely bump and brush

against you.

Getting blindfolded before entering Marina Abramović's Generator at Sean Kelly

Photo: Patrick McMullen

Personally, I stood in place for a few minutes, then wandered until I

found a wall, traced the perimeter several times—confirming that I was,

indeed, still in Sean Kelly gallery—navigating gingerly around my fellow

gallerygoers three or four times. At length, after I had my fill, I raised my

hand and was led out, as per the rules.

I'm not a total hater. The whole thing is amusing, and also somewhat

interesting as a communal experience, on a par with exactly what it

resembles most: a corporate trust-building exercise. I look forward to

Abramović's radical reinvention of the trust fall next!

Photo of participants in Marina Abramović's Generator, via

http://generatorskny.tumblr.com/

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The opening last night felt like a scene, with people lining up well before

the official opening to get a shot at joining in this highly regulated party

game. Back in 2010, The Artist Is Present capitalized on people's

narcissism by documenting and posting pics of each of Abramović'sstaring partners. Generator tries for a similar effect via its own

dedicated Tumblr. Thus far, however, the output of

generatorskny.tumblr.com is about as interesting as you'd expect a

Tumblr featuring blurry long shots of people wandering aimlessly around

an empty white cube might be.

The press release talks about attaining a Buddhist-ish sense of “full

emptiness" and about viewers being “confronted with nothing but

themselves and the palpable energy in the room." At the debut, this was

a mission definitely not accomplished, for the simple reason that the

din of Abramović fans swarming to get in was so loud that you couldhear it through the headphones. Perhaps when the hype dies down a

little, people will actually be able to get closer to what this is supposed

to be about.

Marina Abramović, "Generator," is on view at Sean Kelly, 475 TenthAvenue, through December 6, 2014.

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