The Artist

I wrote this on our recent trip to New York, obviously, and slotted it into the draft list, intending to finish it later. It's, like, five days later, but it's almost finished. Here's what I have for you so far:

It's windy and kind of chilly in New York this morning. I'm sitting in the second story "business center" of our hotel, which is on 14th Street. The window next to me is unscreened and wide open. I could close it, but I don't want to.

This is our last day in New York. We're going to be doing a bit of sightseeing this morning, going to a museum, doing some shopping. Tonight we're returning to Philadelphia by train, and tomorrow we're headed home.

Yesterday we went to two museums, The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), and The American Folk Art Museum. We went to MOMA to see Marina Abramovic's exhibit "The Artist Is Present." Abramovic, a 66-year-old artist, born in Yugoslavia, has actually been sitting in the exhibit from the time the museum opens until it closes. She has been there everyday, all day, since the exhibit opened on March 14. The exhibit closes on May 31.

Pictures are not allowed in the exhibit, so I only snuck this one with my cell phone while Dave and I were sitting on the floor waiting in line to sit across from the artist.

The artist is in white. When the exhibit opened, there was a table between her and the participant, the person who is sitting in the chair opposite. It has since been removed. People can participate by sitting as long as they want. That can be problematic. A few weeks ago, a woman sat opposite her all day, from the time the museum opened until it closed. People routinely sit for hours, disregarding the fifty or more people behind them in line. There's a lesson somewhere in that, I think.

Dave and I waited in line for ninety minutes before we decided to bail and in that ninety minutes only three people had made it into the chair. The woman next to us in line was there for the second day. She told us that in her experience most people sat for about 20 minutes, but the last time she was in the museum a woman had sat for 2 1/2 hours.  Only about seven or so people had been able to participate that day, not including her. We counted up the people in line. There were about 20 in front of us. If each of them sat for only 20 minutes, then it would take about 6 1/2 hours. The museum is only open for 7 hours each day.

A few minutes after I took that picture, the woman got up and a man took his place opposite Abramovic. He's become something of a sad celebrity over the whole matter by coming everyday to sit. The sense of entitlement and selfishness in that act is something that escapes him, I think. But I think one's own sense of entitlement and selfishness often escape one. (I was not so charitable when I saw that he was there.) There's probably a lesson in that.

We--and many others--did not get the opportunity to sit because of this man and others like him. (Apparently celebrities are also able to skip the line ahead of people who wait for hours.) There's a lesson in that, too.