Yvonne Rainer tacle Marina Abramović et son infâme plan de table au MOCA de Los Angeles

Voici la version finale de la lettre envoyée par Yvonne Rainer à Jeffrey Deitch, directeur du musée d'art moderne et contemporain de Los Angeles (MOCA), au sujet de l'événement prévu pour un diner de gala, conçu et mis en scène par Marina Abramović, qui a eu lieu samedi 12 novembre.

Diffusez la! Et pour des images dignes du bal des vampires, cf l'ambigu compte-rendu de Linda Yablonsky http://www.artforum.com/diary/id=29517#readon29517

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November 11, 2011

To Jeffrey Deitch:


After observing a rehearsal, I am writing to protest the “entertainment” about to be provided by Marina Abramović at the upcoming donor gala at the Museum of Contemporary Art where a number of young people’s live heads will be rotating as decorative centerpieces at diners’ tables and others—all women—will be required to lie perfectly still in the nude for over three hours under fake skeletons, also as centerpieces surrounded by diners.

On the face of it the above description might strike one as reminiscent of Salo, Pasolini’s controversial film of 1975 that dealt with sadism and sexual abuse of a group of adolescents at the hands of a bunch of postwar fascists. Though it is hard to watch, Pasolini’s film has a socially credible justification tied to the cause of anti-fascism. Abramović and MoCA have no such credibility—and I am speaking of this event itself, not of Abramović’s work in general—only a questionable personal rationale about the beauty of eye contact and the transcendence of artists’ suffering.

At the rehearsal the fifty heads—all young, beautiful, and mostly white—turning and bobbing out of holes as their bodies crouched beneath the otherwise empty tables, appeared touching and somewhat comic, but when I tried to envision 800 inebriated diners surrounding them, I had another impression. I myself have never been averse to occasional epatering of the bourgeoisie. However, I can’t help feeling that subjecting her performers to possible public humiliation and bodily injury from the three-hour endurance test at the hands of a bunch of frolicking donors is yet another example of the Museum’s callousness and greed and Ms Abramović’s obliviousness to differences in context and some of the implications of transposing her own powerful performances to the bodies of others. An exhibition is one thing—again, this is not a critique of Abramovic’s work in general—but titillation for wealthy donor/diners as a means of raising money is another.

Ms Abramović is so wedded to her original vision that she—and by extension, the Museum director and curators—doesn’t see the egregious associations for the performers, who, though willing, will be exploited nonetheless. Their cheerful voluntarism says something about the pervasive desperation and cynicism of the art world such that young people must become abject table ornaments and clichéd living symbols of mortality in order to assume a novitiate role in the temple of art.

This grotesque spectacle promises to be truly embarrassing. I and the undersigned wish to express our dismay that an institution that we have supported can stoop to such degrading methods of fund raising. Can other institutions be far behind? Must we re-name MoCA “MOUFR” or the Museum of Unsavory Fund Raising?


Sincerely,

Yvonne Rainer


Suivent les signatures de nombreuses personnalités artistiques, Douglas Crimp, Tom Knechtel,Monica Majoli,Liz Kotz,Michael Duncan,Matias Viegener,Judie Bamber, Kimberli Meyer,Kathrin Burmester,Nizan Shaked,Alexandro Segade, David Burns,A.L. Steiner,Simon Leung,Moyra Davey,Taisha Paggett,Susan Silton,Silvia Kolbowski,Susan Mogul,Julian Hoeber,Catherine Lord,Zoe Beloff,Lincoln Tobier,Millie Wilson,Mary Kelly,Charles Gaines,Amy Sadao,Gregg Bordowitz,Andrea Geyer,Lucas Michael,Liz Deschenes,Ulrike Muller,Nancy Popp,Su Freidrich,Dean Daderko,Litia Perta,Ginger Brooks Takahashi,Stefan Kalmar,bell hooks,Julie Ault,Zoe Leonard,Molly Corey,Sharon Horvath,Rachel Harrison,John Zurier,Day Gleeson,Thomas Miccelli,John Yau,Ernest Larsen...