OK, I’ll admit it, I was curious about Marina Abramovic’s The Artist Is Present at the Museum of Modern Art.* So, given the opportunity one day in late April, I went to sit with her myself. I was third in line, and had to wait only about 25 minutes, give or take. (You have heard about the man who has at least twice sat with her for an entire day, while dozens waited in line for their chance? I call that selfish.)

Since I knew that I would not be able to sit long — work was pressing — I told a curatorial assistant there in the atrium that I hoped I wasn’t being impolite. She responded with an amusing and presumably accurate answer: “Marina doesn’t judge people,” she said.

I had no idea what the experience would be like, and it was surprisingly intense. In the course of daily life, most people don’t lock eyes, expressionless, for long periods of time. After a few minutes, I purposely softened my expression, largely because my blank stare seemed unnatural, but didn’t quite smile. I wasn’t thinking about much other than this was a new experience, that Abamovic looked (at this early hour) completely normal, if intent and practiced. I’m not sure others who sit with her think much more; MoMA’s “Visitor Viewpoint” webpage isn’t very revealing, and the Sitting With Marina group on Facebook has only 116 members and little commentary. I am mystified by another website showing that people end up in tears, sometimes after only four or five minutes. See: Marina Abramovic Made Me Cry.

Far too much, probably, has already been written about the show. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if most other museum exhibits got as much attention?

And here’s another “wouldn’t it be wonderful” from Colm Toibin’s blog for the New York Review of Books, who wrote about his 20-minute experience sitting with Marina.

…It made me feel that I could spend the day there opposite her, and maybe the next day too, and it also made me want to go, it made me consider at what point I would leave.

As soon as I began to think over my options, I forced myself to look at her more closely. I had no clear idea what she was thinking but she was doing a good imitation of someone gazing in the most serious way at someone else, like a painter might gaze in that second before applying the brush to the canvas, or like the sitter in turn might gaze at the painter. Or like we should look at paintings ourselves, or at things we believe in.

 

Photo: Courtesy the Museum of Modern Art

*A consulting client is a supporter of MoMA.

The Webby Awards, which honor excellence on the web, were announced the other day, and with them comes a window on what the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences thinks of cultural websites — and what web denizens think, too, as each category has a People’s Choice award.

Specifically, arts institutions compete in three categories, though they might potentially squeeze into a couple of the other 100 categories, too. “Youth” maybe? This year, that award was won by National Geographic Kids, and I see no reason why a museum kids site couldn’t compete. “Best Visual Design — Aesthetic” and “Best Visual Design — Function” are also possibilities, though no cultural institutions made it to the finals this year, unless you count the National Geographic Society, again.

But more to the point:  

In the “art” category, the Tate won with “The Unilever Series 2009: Miroslaw Balka, How It Is.” It is full of bells and whistles, and I understand its appeal to sophisticated members of the digerati. But I prefer the People’s Choice — MoMA popart. Be prepared to spend some time with each.

In the best Cultural Institution category, the winner was the Frank Lloyd Wright Robie House Interior Restoration Project (left). I love this one; it’s fun to play with. The People’s Choice trophy went to the Smithsonian’s NMNH Ocean Portal. Surprisingly, to me, no visual arts entry — assuming there were some — figured in the finals. 

The Best “cultural blog” was Mashable, and the People’s Choice here went to 1000 Awesome Things. Neither one is really a “cultural” blog using my narrower definition of the word, and for the purposes of Real Clear Arts.

Here’s a link to all the winners.

Photo Credits: Courtesy The Webby Awards, Frank Lloyd Wright Robie House Interior Restoration Project

 

Get out your walking shoes, or hire that car. Spring art season has begun in earnest. Today at 4 p.m., a few hours before Christie’s begins the two-week run of bellwether auctions of Impressionist, Modern and contemporary art, several of New York’s Old Master dealers are holding receptions: Masterworks of Six Centuries. “Special” exhibitions, for these art-heavy weeks, will continue over the next few weeks, at least.

On Friday, New York Gallery Week, which I’ve already written about here, kicks off a long weekend of solo shows, panels and other contemporary art events.

And mark your calendars for May 19, 4 to 8 p.m. — that’s when several American galleries will be open for their semi-annual evening event, always held during the weeks in December and in May when Christie’s and Sotheby’s have their American art auctions. More information is here.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. But in truth, I’m posting this because of the painting above, “The Twist” by Thomas Hart Benton, dated 1964 — it’s one of the works that will be on view on May 19.

Benton lived until 1975, when he was 86, and he had long since fallen out of favor. It’s a twist party imagined by someone who’d never been to one. (Bongo drums?) He was, afterall, in his 70s when he painted the scene. It’s also a bit incongruous with the burly workmen and midwestern landscapes of his usual works (but not the music themes). He was trying, at least, to what? Keep current? Chubby Checker had his smash hit in 1960, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard charts in September by pushing out Elvis’s “It’s Now Or Never.” By ’64, the Peppermint Lounge was running at a fever pitch. I’m no expert on Benton, but he’s reaching here way beyond his grasp — and somehow that tickles me. 

Photo Credit: Courtesy Debra Force Fine Art Inc.

Artist and art professor Anne Walsh has raised the issue of better representation for women artists in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art — and she’s doing it right in the museum’s back yard, which is to say on SFMoMA’s blog, Open Space, where she is a columnist.

In one post, on April 13, she took senior curator Gary Garrels to task about SFMoMA‘s fourth floor, Focus on Artists, a permanent collection installation.

15 male artists own the majority of linear and cubic gallery-feet, 3 female artists have the rest. And of those three women, at least two could be called twofers: they’re the only artists of color in the entire installation, and they’re women!  (Here I am referring to Doris Salcedo and Kara Walker. If, in ignorance, I’ve overlooked someone, please correct me.)

Garrels didn’t blow Walsh off, but he didn’t provide a satisfying response either — he noted that many decisions on this had been made before he became curator and that SFMoMA’s collection is not a “comprehensive” one and therefore lacks work by women.

Yet asked whose work by women he’d like to show in this installation, he answered only one — Joan Mitchell.

Walsh also notes:

Early in our conversation, Garrels averred that there are so many strong women artists working today, that he can tend to forget that the stakes are still uneven for male and female artists. 

Then why answer with just one choice when pressed? Makes no sense — it’s one way or the other, not both.

To help Garrels out, Walsh has a made a little list, of dozens of women artists whose names she’d like to see on SFMoMA’s shopping list “so that at SFMoMA’s 100 year anniversary, things might look a little different for women, and for us all.” (This is its 75th anniversary.) Too bad Walsh herself labeled it a “fantasy.”

Here’s the link to her post, with the list. It’s ID’d as Part 1, and I’m looking forward to the next one, which hasn’t appeared yet.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of SFMoMA