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The Other Artist is Present

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Act I: Bodies and Wedding

Artist Statement

As I enter the meditative space in a flowing red gown—a close facsimile to Abramovic's deep blue robe—I add symmetry to the scene. Out of earshot of the audience, I expresses my deep and sincere devotion to Abramovic's artistic legacy: "I love your bodies of work… and I would love to be wedded to this body.... do you accept this marriage, here and now??"

I evoke the Shiite provision of temporary marriage: a fixed-term, noncommittal relationship by which intimacy could be shared for a specific time. My request is met with silence. I then go on to playfully describe a "national tradition" in which the woman coquettishly hesitates to respond when asked for her hand: "in my culture… they say she is out making rose water…" I end my ceremony with a joyous dance—a whiplash shift from dialogue to dance inspired by the tongue-in-cheek sensibility of Abramovic's "This is How We Kill Rats in the Balkans."

I symbolically wed the icon in a manner reminiscent of her own work: through the juxtaposition of the solemn and the celebratory.

Act II: Behind the Canvas

Artist Statement

I return to the table with my face now concealed by a series of four overlapping canvases. Each is emblazoned with an enigmatic message. The first canvas, "In/out," sets the tone as it refers to borders. The second, "I am a nurse from New Zealand" appears to break Abramovic's concentration for a moment, moved as she recognizes the reference to an alias she dons when traveling. Unaware of the effect I have had on Abramovic, I reveal the next canvas: "a non resident alien" – a status familiar to both of us. The final layer, "passing of the author," references Roland Barthes' essay, The Death of the Author, a text that advocates the separation of the artist from his or her artistic creation. I want my infiltration to make the audience question: Who is the performer? Who is in? And who is out?

For, in that moment, it is no longer simply her piece alone but has been subverted into a product of our shared passions. I pause and lay the canvases onto the table. I remove my wallet and an inkpad from my pocket and ritualistically stamp the canvases with my fingerprints. In the overwhelming light of the sterile performance space, security guards seem ready to spring into action as I remove my hands from my pockets, evoking the traumatic discomfort felt by a person detained at a security checkpoint. I am no longer simply the other artist in the piece but an artist expressing the pain and vulnerability of being an “other”, an outsider.

Act III: Other Trance

Artist Statement

In contrast to the dynamic actions I have just performed, I gently bow my head and enter a serene meditative state. After a lengthy silence, I begin slowly and quietly chanting the words of a Sufi-derived mantra in Arabic. Arabic is a foreign tongue to me, as my first language is Persian, another playful blurring of identity. Nonetheless, I passionately intone the words, Huwa Jameel wa Yahebbu Jameel (he is beautiful and he loves beauty), my voice slowly building in volume to fill the atrium. The phrase alludes to one of Abramovic's early works, Art Is Beautiful; Artist Must Be Beautiful (1975).

By the time my intonation ends, I am in tears, having transcended issues of identity and authorship. We have both arrived at a state of catharsis through opposing means—Abramovic through silence and I though mantra and ritualistic acts. I lower my head, rise from the table and exit the scene, leaving behind my wallet, a physical manifestation of my identity, further emphasizing my distance from concerns about labels or fitting neatly into prescribed classifications. In a marked and awkward disruption of the quarantine-like space defined by Abramovic, a concerned guard darts in to remove the wallet and return it to my hands. I refuse to accept the wallet, a final gesture emphasizing my separation from concerns of status and identity.

Project Description

Amir Baradaran’s The Other Artist is Present is a performance in four acts wherein he honors, questions and ultimately departs from Marina Abramovic’s performance at The Museum of Modern Art, entitled The Artist Is Present (9 March - 31 May 2010). Abramovic has invited the public to participate in her latest work: a living sculpture in which patrons silently engage the artist for the length of their choosing. Baradaran, too, accepts her invitation, but as an impassioned fellow artist looking to draw her into a ‘sohbat’–the Persian term for a conversation with both spiritual and corporeal dimensions.