Seductive, fearless, and outrageous, Marina Abramović has been redefining what art is for nearly 40 years. Using her body as a vehicle, pushing beyond physical and mental limits, and at times risking her life, she creates performances that challenge, shock, and move us. In 2010, the artist made her grandest and perhaps most personal statement yet with a 730-hour performance as part of her monumental retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present is a mesmerizing cinematic journey inside the world of radical performance, and an intimate portrait of one of the most compelling artists of our time—a charismatic woman “who is never not performing,” as Abramović’s longtime friend and MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach puts it. It also offers fascinating insights into the recent evolution of performance art: its relatively recent move into museum galleries, and Abramović’s campaign to preserve a transient art form through live re-performances. 2012, DCP, 106 minutes.