The Artist Is Present by Marina Abramovic at MoMA

Marina Abramović creates analog, performance- and system-based work that elevates audience participation and the role of the viewer in the vein of interactive software art. Her work combines famed video art pioneer Nam June Paik’s interest in participation with Sol LeWitt’s instruction-based practice to think systematically about art without the use of code. Abramović’s The Artist Is Present (2010) exemplifies her systems-based approach, as the work is ultimately instruction and rules-based, as each participant in The Artist Is Present is given the following instructions: “Sit silently with the artist for a duration of your choosing.” Performed on every day the Museum was open across two and a half grueling months, The Artist is Present is a dematerialized and serial work of generative art that emphasizes participation. The piece demonstrates the similarities between digital and conceptual art. Abramović understands the power of unpredictability within systems.