Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present

In 2010 the Museum of Modern Art in New York shows forty years of Marina Abramović's work. A new performance is prepared for it: the artist will sit on a chair in the museum's atrium and look at whoever sits down opposite. No speaking, no touching. It lasts three months, six days a week, seven and a half hours a day. The queue reaches outside the building every day. Matthew Akers directs. The documentary covers both the preparation and Abramović's past. Growing up in Belgrade, the work of the seventies in which she put her own body at risk, and the twelve years she worked with Ulay are given as separate sections. Their separation was a performance in itself: the two walked from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China, met in the middle and parted there. The most cited moment in the documentary is Ulay arriving unannounced at the exhibition and sitting in the chair opposite her. What interests the film is what performance art is. Abramović defines it as a work of endurance rather than a show, and the documentary presents duration as material. It was produced with the artist and the critical distance is limited; her wish for fame and her position in the art market are not dug into enough. Who it is for: anyone interested in contemporary art and the history of performance. Who it is not for: the structure is conventional, there is little criticism, and for a viewer unpersuaded by the form, somebody sitting on a chair for three months is a great deal.