The acclaimed artist handpicked eight names for a showcase in Adelaide. One recently made headlines – and another was surprised to be chosen
No one has done more to popularise performance art than Marina Abramović – and no work more so than her hit Moma (Museum of Modern Art) retrospective The Artist Is Present. Over almost three months in 2010 she sat in the New York museum for at least seven hours a day, six days a week, and invited members of the public to sit opposite her, one at a time.
The virality of that performance piece, and the popular 2012 documentary about it, turned the Belgrade-born artist, best known for extreme works that test the limits of physical and mental endurance, into a somewhat unlikely pop culture icon. High-profile collaborations with big names such as Jay-Z and Givenchy followed, as well as merchandise, a skin care line, and dozens of solo exhibitions at major museums around the world, including a survey at the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart in 2015.
Aborigines are not just the oldest race in Australia; they are the oldest race on the planet. They look like dinosaurs. They are really strange and different, and they should be treated as living treasures. Yet they are not.
But at the same time, when you first meet them, you have to put effort into it. For one thing, to Western eyes they look terrible. Their faces are like no other faces on earth; they have big torsos (just one bad result of their encounter with Western civilisation is a high sugar diet that bloats their bodies) and sticklike legs.
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