On Nov 17, 2005, at 3:19 PM, Caitlin Jones wrote:
> that if this is how
> the institution is preserving and presenting works which challenge
> conventional presentation, I'm not sure I don't prefer the original
> documentation of the performance, rather than the "redo". And an echo
> of the refrain that issues of presentation and canonical acceptance of
> new media art is also playing out in other areas of artistic
> production.
The one criticism I keep hearing from people who've been to the
performances is that she altered the pieces to fit her own emphasis on
endurance and her personal history so much that they were no longer the
original works and I had the impression that that was her intention. In
an interview I read recently Abramovic spoke about how much she liked
the recreation of her piece "The House with the Ocean View" at Sean
Kelly Gallery a few years ago as a plot device on the cable show "Sex
and the City". So "media" is an element in her thinking, if not "new
media" and, of course in the US media means TV. How many performance
artists have had that kind of mass media exposure?
So I see this more as a Sherrie Levine appropriation (especially with
"seed bed") but, like several people I spoke with I decided to sit this
one out though I am surprised at the number of people I've talked to
who thought of these performances as a kind of pilgrimage they had to
go on. I chalk it up the the PR genius of RoseLee Goldberg and
Abramovic's dealer, Sean Kelly. We shouldn't forget that whatever
happens we're still at the mercy of the machinations of commerce.
One person summed it up by saying Bjork did it better at the Athens
Olympics opening ceremony. I say Carey Young's installation at Paula
Cooper was the most engaging thing I saw related to PERFORMA05.
Robbin Murphy
The Thing, Inc.
c/o Death Star
New York, NY
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http://post.thing.net
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