On the morning of Saturday, March 27 2010, the MoMA opened as usual. Inside, Marina Abramovic sat facing a table and an empty chair. As scheduled, she was ready to receive visitors as part of her marathon performance piece, “The Artist is Present.”
But this Saturday was different: the first visitor in line was a young woman who showed up dressed in a long dark blue dress, a black braid swept over one shoulder. As Abramovic’s doppleganger, she sat across from her and assumed a mirror pose. And there she sat, to the befuddlement of the museum staff and visitors, all day.
Frequently overhead in the crowd was the exclamation of disbelief, “She’s still here?!” There were some grumpy folks who waited for their turn in line before giving up, because no one could beat this marathon sitter. I checked twitter to see someone whine, “Really mad at this Marina Abromavic[sic] imposter whose[sic] taken over the exhibit at the MOMA. A plague upon both your houses!“*
It was mysterious. It was intriguing. It was hilarious. My initial thought was: what a better way to “kill your idol” than to beat her at her own game, but then I also wondered if it was a way to present affection to a long-admired artist and influence?
As it turns out, the doppleganger is Anya Liftig, a Brooklyn-based performance artist. Her intervention on “The Artist is Present” was a performance of her own, which she has titled “The Anxiety of Influence” after the Harold Bloom book of the same title. Bloom’s main concern was how poets, driven to write by their admiration of their idols, could succeed in generating original work in spite of the pressure of influence. See what I’m saying?
I spoke to Anya about her anxieties of influence, her endurance level, and what it was like to come face-to-face with the so-called “grandmother of performance art.” Read the interview after the jump.
Continue reading…
