The Artist Is Present, Marina Abramović’s landmark performance staged at the Museum of Modern Art in 2010, is widely considered a high mark of her career. Yet the Serbian artist revealed that she was warned by a MoMA curator that “nobody has time” for what would become arguably her most iconic performance, in which she sat across from museum visitors every day for three months. Abramović recounted the incident in an interview on the Louis Theroux Podcast.
During preparations for her 2010 MoMA retrospective, according to Abramović,the then-director of MoMA PS1, Klaus Biesenbach, told her that the idea for The Artist Is Present was “totally ridiculous.” He added that, in New York, “nobody has time to sit in this chair.”
The reception proved otherwise. Abramović sat silently in the museum’s atrium for the duration of the exhibition, while more than 1,500 people took turns facing her. The chair that Biesenbach referred to, she said, “was never empty.”
In the interview, Abramović also discussed her views on the art market, contrasting her approach with that of Damien Hirst. She told Theroux she has “never” made work with commercial value in mind, while praising Hirst for using the market strategically.
Later in the conversation, Abramović addressed her long association with physical endurance and injury. She emphasized that she does not seek out pain in private life; instead, her work intends to confront cultural fears around pain and suffering. She described herself as a mirror for audiences, noting that, “if I can liberate myself from the fear of pain, you can do the same.”
Earlier this year, Abramović appeared on The Artsy Podcast to discuss her new NFT project and mindfulness in the digital realm. Next year, she will become the first living woman artist to be featured in a solo exhibition at Venice’s Gallerie dell’Accademia. Scheduled to coincide with the artist’s 80th birthday, the show will feature several of her endurance-based performances.
The Louis Theroux Podcast is available on Spotify now.
