How did this happen? Who on earth could have seen this coming?:
It turns out a crowded museum, like a crowded subway, is no excuse for an improper touch. This lesson has been learned the hard way by some visitors to “The Artist is Present,” the Marina Abramovic retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, which features performers re-enacting performance pieces by Ms. Abramovic, many in the nude.
“In at least three instances, I have heard people were removed from the gallery for inappropriate touching,” said Gary Lai, one of the performers, who, although he had not been violated himself, said he had been told this by museum guards and fellow performers. “I didn’t think that would happen at all; who’s going to do something with all these people around?”
Ms. Abramovic’s work often involves nudity and sitting, standing or lying down for long periods, and it gives the performers a substantial measure of independence in interacting with people. It has invited close encounters of all kinds at the MoMA show. In addition to blatant gropers, there have been stalkerish types who have tracked performers down on Facebook and an excitable visitor who got so close to a naked performer that she stepped on her toes, causing her to faint soon after. And then there are the commenters, praising or criticizing the performers’ bodies, yelling at them to wake up when their eyes are closed, even helpfully telling the nude performers in “Imponderabilia,” a piece in which two of them face each other across a narrow gallery entrance, that “your fly is down.” As one performer said of the constant crush of people, at some point “you begin to feel like a subway turnstile.”
In other news of the culturally moronic, behold, the world’s most depressing toy! (Thanks for the tip, Erin):
posted April 16, 2010 at 2:02 am
Statues and paintings of naked people: art.
Naked people: not art?
Interesting…
posted April 16, 2010 at 6:41 am
Is that a Bloomberg terminal?
posted April 16, 2010 at 7:43 am
I’m not exaggerating when I say that made me cry.
posted April 16, 2010 at 9:11 am
Well, we’ve all had our share of bad ideas. One of mine was a campaign called “National Bring your Pit Bull to Work Day.” As always, the lawyers throw a wet blanket on genius. Something about “level of liability” and “wholly unacceptable.” blah blah blah….
posted April 16, 2010 at 9:12 am
I’d like to meet the parent who actually think a kiddie cubicle is a good idea. Seriously, who thinks this is a good idea?!
posted April 16, 2010 at 9:35 am
Another money-making scheme from Dogbert
posted April 16, 2010 at 9:47 am
Classic Lenin (Gramsci translation). Create a situation where normal people are guaranteed to behave badly, then scorch the normal people for their sins. Cognitive dissonance in turbo form.
In other words, absolutely typical modern “art”.
posted April 16, 2010 at 10:00 am
While the design of the kiddie cubicle may well not be age appropriate at all, the software chosen is excellent. That is “Millie’s Math House”, a fantastic program to help young children from pre-school through first grade learn basic skills like counting, grouping and simple addition.
But, yeah…the cubicle needs to go.
posted April 16, 2010 at 10:29 am
Junior, what’s happening? We need to talk about your PTS (potty training specification) reports, mmmkay. Ya see, we’re using a new cover sheet, and if you could just remember to use that one and not the old, that’d be great!
posted April 16, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Reminds me of the sophomore streak at Princeton on the first snowy night of the year. The authorities banned it after some of the young women complained they had been groped. To their shock and dismay, by young men who they trusted, considered their friends!
Drunk, naked, masked, nineteen – how could that possibly have any bearing on one’s expected behavior?
posted April 16, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Re: Statues and paintings of naked people: art.
Naked people: not art?
Interesting…
Goya’s “The Third of May: Executions In The Principal Tio Mountains” is art.
A real-life reenactment would be… an atrocity.