Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present (2012)

I'm like one of those pseudo-intellectual types. Like, super pedantic and sure of myself but only ever really having like 10% of the information. I'm obsessed more with ideas than I am with, like, the actual works and writings and shit that fall under these ideas, you know? I'm all about the surface - and that's it. Just very fake as fuck. (Wait - am I fake or faux-intellectual? Both? It's the same, dummy.) So it makes sense I'm super into ART. But not really. Like, I don't care about your little paintings or installations or whatever. I'm not thinking about what they ~mean~. I'm more interested in whoever the freak is behind the work. Like, what do they eat for breakfast? Who'd make some weird ass shit like this - a nigga into Cap'n Crunch (Cap'n, my dude??) or a cooncow into Apple Jacks? Or am I about to be really surprised and find someone else who super-seriously loves the forever-ignored, quasi-elusive Golden Puffs??

(Is that a kangaroo? Why, tho? Why is it blue? And why is the joey not?? See, this is why you can't be great, Golden Puffs)

Parker Ito, do you love Golden Puffs????

Let's be honest, it looks like you sip that gelly water stuff in the little vienna sausage cans while saying things like "Break fast. Break. Fast." Like that shit means something. 

HELLO, MILES MENDENHALL, ARE YOU STILL FUCKING ALIVE??

R.I.P., MY ANGEL. 

See. My knowledge of art stuff extends only past season one of Work of Art. Like, I couldn't even be bothered to watch season 2, which I'm only 77.3% sure exists. But, clearly, I wasn't the only one who couldn't be bothered haha!

Sooooooooooooooo should I maybe start fucking talking about the actual shit I came here to talk about orrr??!

Like, I was trying to preface. Or offer a disclaimer? Idk. I just want you to know I don't care about ~art~ in the right way. If there is a right way, because seriously, watching this mess sort of makes me think there isn't??

So at first I tried to watch this doc in like...a proper...manner. Like, through the lens of someone who isn't essentially Salem the Cat from Sabrina but in humanish form. But...somewhere around the...maybe forty minute mark? Possibly way sooner than that??? I lost interest in trying to respect this documentary as something that deserved respect. Which is no shade to the film, this is how I watch pretty much everything. Like I just started screencapping a bunch of stuff and laughing at shit that maybe wasn't supposed to be funny and thinking things like "Marina could get it" and not even trying to feel ashamed. 

So I just want to say that I think Marina's idea to sit in front of people's stupid fucking faces for seven hours a day, six days a week is...noble? I sure as fuck couldn't do it. Annnnnd this reminds me of exactly when I stopped watching this movie as a movie and started taking screencaps of shit that was making me laugh and that was pretty much what I did for the majority of my viewing. 

I totally did not even think about going to the bathroom. When I heard about this exhibit/performance art thingy years ago I was under the impression she just sat there all day every day. But that's insane, and also I think I confused The Artist Is Present with another one of Marina's works. That one where she's like showering and shit and people can just watch?? Anyway, seven hours a day is still a fucking lot. And when they revealed this^chair I was like "omg". I wonder if she ever used it. Did she have a flap in the back of her dress? Because seriously, how awkward would that have been if she really had to piss and/or shit and then just started fidgeting about in her seat trying to get access to the hole and she's staring into someone's face the whole time? Preferrably Franco's??

But we're getting ahead of ourselves!!! I think I'm just going to write about the caps I took. Which I didn't start taking until post-David Blaine eating a glass, I think. Like, why didn't that mess inspire me?? Because he's David Blaine and no1 cares??? Like, not even Marina cared in that scene. She's like *yawn* Did this nigga just take a bite of my wineglass? What is he - Italian? (????)

Oh, Ulay! So I was mildly obsessed with Ulay. He was sort of giving me Jeremy Irons tease, right? And I was totally shipping him and Marina sort of. At first. I took this cap because he was wearing an all-jean ensemble like he was attending a Canadian wedding or being from one of those places in that area between the two coasts. Those flyover states. Coloyoming or some shit. But seriously when he showed up I was all like "Are they going to fuck, or what?" AND YO, I THINK THEY DID. Because after this^, Ulay is in the kitchen with Marina and his jean shirt is HELLA UNBUTTONED. And Marina looks sort of messy??? Ugh, why didn't I cap that? It was hella postcoital, son. 

Here^ Ulay was talking about how lazy he is. Peep that open ass shirt!!! I thought this bit was funny, but also I felt like he was throwing a lot of shade at Marina and seeming sort of jealous? The more he talked and the more that was revealed about him, the less I shipped them. How you gonna call this bitch out for being ambitious and making dem dollar$? And then he's all "I don't have to work hard, I can just marry Marina", like, jokingly. But you know he was dead ass serious. And I bet he thinks he's majorly responsible for her success, too. Like, you can just tell. That being said, I totally loved him. Like he was thoroughly amusing. 

Here, for some reason, the camera was filming Marina vomiting? Because......???????? But it's like, why did I feel the need to screencap this? THE MONSTER IS LOOKING BACK AT ME.

I loved that this bitch was sick in bed looking like actual art. Which is obviously the whole point of Marina, right? Like she's all art all the time? Nigga, idk. But I loved this shot. She explains some shit about how red gives her power or some shit?? And then at the end of her explanation she's like "That was my monologue", something like that. And just, ugh, I love her. She is soooo cute. 

Okay, so I was sort of going crazy capping Ulay when he was walking around the exhibit whatever thing. HE WAS PERFORMING SO HARD FOR THE CAMERAS, OH MY GOD. I lived for every minute of it. All his fucking faces - guh!

Okay I have to post like fourteen thousand caps I took of Ulay when he walked through those two naked people, which those white ladies on Fox News were very aghast about lol 

LOOK AT HIM!! WHY IS HE WALKING     LIKE.THAATTTTT?!?!

I

CAN'T

DO

THIS.

No one can top Ulay, but this spiky-haired woman who walked through the naked people was also amusing

praise Allah for this movie, for real.

Okay here^ made me think this ~documentary~ was sort of fake. Like, first of all, Ulay has on Chucks. lol, no, that's not why. But him sitting down with Marina was so fucking extra, omg. So, pointed. Like, we get it, you two used to be partners. 

And then Marina crying

My cynic alarm started doing that annoying, shrill ass beeping it does when I fuck up the bacon. "Fuck up the bacon" means...nothing. Like, I'm not even going to try to make that mean something. And Marina/this movie shouldn't have tried to make this^ mean something, either. Ooooh, slam!! lol no, no one cares what I have to say about this, or my suspicions. It just seemed a touch fake, but who the fuck am I to be calling out fakeness when I opened this post declaring how I'm a Holden Caulfield level phony and that pretty much I only cared about this movie because Ulay looked like Jeremy Irons a little???? Come on, me. 

So when this drag queen off-duty came through I was like that girl in the middle: IS HE 'BOUT TO COLUMBINE, OR WHAT??! And it made me wonder about the fake-ass security at MoMa. Like, are they checkin' niggas at the door orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr??? This person clearly walked in with something under their coat soooooooooooooooo But also, what was that? I thought it was a mirror, but then they showed it later and it looked like...not a mirror? Was it a TV? It looked like a picture frame and there was some weird Liberty Science Center shit in the middle? Idk man, but my dude's blush was fucked. 

Am I a monster for laughing at all the people who cried? Yes, but a cute monster. Like Sully from Monster's, Inc. He could get it though, right??? 

Please don't judge me, Boo. Please. 

Look at this piece of shit. Like, why do you have that face? This is the type of dude I would have had a crush on in high school and his name would've been like Alex and he probably wouldn't even kill me when he came thru to shoot up everyone because I wasn't a cool jock, but I also wasn't one of those wheelchair kids. Totally irrelevant in the scheme of things. He'd have no need to ask me if I believed in God; he just assumed I was Jehovah's Witness because one time I wore that really long jean skirt maybe??? Wait, but how many times am I going to reference school shootings? To be honest, they're not referenced enough. AMERICA UNITED STATES BALD EAGLE BALLPARK FRANKS!!!!!

So I guess demons are just walking around totally sans disguise now? You know how in Constantine (plz don't judge me, Boo) the demons were disguised as stuff? Like, as people? uggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh This dude looks like Riff Raff from Rocky Horror mixed with Malcolm McDowell from Cat People?? No, because that actually sounds hot. Wait, did you know I was sexually attracted to Riff Raff? WELL NOW YOU DO. 

This^ is the exact moment when that dude in the fleece was all like "You're an actor?" to Jimmy Franko and James had to say "yes" whilst choking down tears/screams. Praise Allah.

This was when Marina was all like "Who was that hot Asian?". I totally forgot her assistant's name, but either he's in love with her, or he had dibs on that Asian. 

This bitch. BUT WHY ARE YOU CRYING?? Did she seriously think she wasn't going to get snatched up for taking her dress off?? Come on, Sally. Or Alice or Jan or whatever the fuck. I was amused, though. As soon as she walked up to sit with Marina I knew she was going to pull some shit. And she did and yay! See, this is why I need to start going to these art shows: there's a good chance someone will pull some stunt queen shit. Someone other than whatever stunt queen artist's show they're doing it at. Like I want to see people get naked for no reason/kindofmaybe do Columbine/start crying and saying they're "proud" of their black son for being so brave to look Marina in the eye and not turn to stone??? I need these things in my life on a regular basis!! This documentary has not sustained me!!! 

Alright, bye.