Performance ordeals: museum/circus/street
Location, location, location
Top: Performance artist Marina Abramović sat in a wooden chair in the Museum of Modern Art and stared blankly at whoever sat down across from her. She stayed rock-still for up to 9.5 hours a day for more than 90 days in 2010. This feat of painful endurance sparked controversies that ranged from: How does she sit that long without peeing? to What is the point? to Is it art?
Middle: The point of this Indian’s fire-eating is less fraught: He is a professional circus performer and eating fire is his craft. And of course we all wonder: How come he doesn’t get burned?
Below: This Sri Lankan street performer’s skill is swinging large boulders attached to his hair by ropes. He earns a few rupees.
Note: The bottom two photos are from the days when I had a cheap camera, a very limited supply of film, and far less skill than any of the three people above.
My first reaction to the photo of the man carrying the two huge rocks was that it was an inventive torture technique. What in the world could possibly make me think that.
You know, I saw the show at MoMA and found it moving and uncanny, even something like uplifting. I wouldn't say she stared at people blankly. The two chairs were within a cordoned-off space that people could walk around. Within that space there was sustained attention, and the volunteers who came to sit with her became part of that and participated in it. The onlookers could pick up on it as well, though many didn't. It certainly was a feat and no doubt grueling. That part I don't get. I would have found it just as moving if the sessions had been much shorter.