I first learned of Marina Abramovic while studying performance art as an undergraduate at Alfred University with Laurel Jay Carpenter. As part of her teaching, Laurel would sometimes have my classmates and I emulate performances, like Marina and Ulay’s Nightsea Crossing, as a springboard to learning to create and collaborate in our own performance pieces. From this grew a huge appreciation for performance art. Four years had passed since Alfred and I felt drawn to the chair opposite Marina like a moth to a light bulb. It’s hard to elaborate on this urge I felt to sit with Marina. It was magnetic. I saw importance in the artist’s retrospective. In particular, a retrospective for an artist still living and in which she participated.
My husband, Will, and I were newly engaged and we planned to spend time in New York to celebrate. We planned our trip around the exhibition and traveled 260 miles from Corning, New York.
We sat with Marina on May 19, 2010. From the moment we got up that morning, I felt like I was preparing myself mentally and physically for the day, just like Laural had taught us. Brushing teeth, Metro line changes. All activities I had performed many times before. They all felt calculated and important. We arrived at the museum just after 7am and a line was already forming outside. I believe it was shortly after 9am when we were allowed into the museum lobby. Lines from various entrances merged and suddenly, the number of people trying to get a decent spot in line multiplied. The morning suddenly got a bit frantic. We hadn’t purchased tickets in advance and now we needed to figure out how to take care of this and keep spots in line. The museum allowed us into the lobby prior to the ticket lines opening, however the membership desk was staffed. We were quick to learn that for guests without tickets or current memberships a new membership meant access to the exhibition. Finally, just before 10:30am, when the museum and the exhibition officially opened, we were allowed into the gallery at the bottom of the atrium steps. From here you could see the glowing lights of the performance. When security finally allowed us up those stairs, you first caught sight of Marina’s back. The line moved quickly and keeping in stride with the rest of the group, Will pointed at the chair opposite Marina and said, “That’s Kim Cattrall!” The actress was already seated and our day of watching, observing, and of course, more waiting, began.
Seventeen others were ahead of us in line to sit with Marina and while I felt confident that we would get to participate, I knew there was the possibility we might not. This became apparent when Kim Cattrall opened the performance with Marina by sitting for an hour. The other wild card to getting into that chair was Paco Blancas. He was among the group ahead of us, and the gossip of the line was that there was no telling how long he intended to sit that day and I was already aware that MoMA’s website had reported him as visiting and sitting more than a dozen times since the start of the performance.
When I finally sat, it was 4:00 pm. Staring at Marina staring back at me, innumerable thoughts were going though my head. I couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking, contemplate aspects of my past since first learning of the performer, and with the slight tilt of her head, feel like it wasn’t an internal monologue, but an active conversation. Wordless and tense and energetic, yet delicate and beautiful, like two molecules yearning for the other’s outer electrons. Once sitting, I lost reference of how much time had passed. Our gaze broke and then in was over. Six minutes later.
- Andrew Youngman
