Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present

Far from being a mere document, MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT, Matthew Akers’s film about “the grandmother of performance art” Marina Abramović’s massively popular 2010 Museum of Modern Art retrospective, is itself a moving work of art, visually and emotionally powerful.

The documentary gives us a crash course on Abramović’s pioneering work and details her extensive preparations for the show which, among other purposes, was intended to once and for all assert performance art’s proper place as a legitimate and respected art form alongside painting, sculpture, photography, and video art. Abramović at one point remarks that at this late date, she is no longer asked the rather insulting question, “But why is this art?” as much as she used to be. However, she still feels that performance art is still often relegated to the fringes of the art world, and regarded as “alternative”. “I’m 65! I don't want to be alternative anymore!” she laments. (Christopher Bourne)

In the presence of Marina Abramović and Matthew Akers.