Marina and Me
This was my own right of passage. I just got married to my work as a performance artist. Marina was my Priestess.
I sat with Marina dressed as a bride the last Saturday of her performance. I waited a total of 21 hours on 3 separate occasions but sat just once, for 30 minutes. On my third attempt I was successful. My girlfriend and I camped out in front of the MoMA, we arrived at 2:15 am. There were 13 people ahead of us. It felt like a competition to be one of the first in line. The line got longer throughout the night, but we made friends. Luckily my friend drove her minivan so we had the comfort to take naps in the van. When we got into the atrium, as the first to be able to sit with her, I got the chills. There was now a time limit, 30 minutes maximum per person, so I knew that by around 3:30 pm I’d be very fortunate to sit with her. I felt like I’d won the lottery.
Marina is my idol. I looked at her work when I first was introduced to performance art. Now, as a performance artist myself, I felt that I belonged in that arena with her and would carry on the torch in some way.
I expected to have a conversation with her through the eyes, and I did. Upon my arrival she smiled at me like I was a child of hers. She knew what I was contemplating as I sat there in front of her dressed as a bride wearing white to match her. She was my priestess. I was actually marrying art in the chapel. Maybe I was also confronting the institution in which this all took place.
It was a moment of a lifetime for me. My sit with Marina was meant to be very personal as I decided to commit my life to my art. She was the ideal person to initiate that for me. Yet my friends felt I was challenging Marina by using her as a prop for my own performance. Maybe I was.
- Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow
http://jodielynkeechow.com/artwork/1416855_Marina_and_me.html
