This is Art?

Today Lauren and I went to see the Tim Burton exhibit at MoMA. I've enjoyed his movies and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed his art work. I would attempt to describe his work in detail here but I am not an artist myself, nor do I know how to express what it is he does on a cogent manner to do it justice. What I will say is that if you enjoy his movies and the odd almost gothic look of them, you'd really enjoy this exhibit (which closes tomorrow, 4/26/10, and is more than likely sold out).

This was not the only exhibit at the famous MoMA, another prominent artist's work was on display, however I'm not sure how comfortable I am calling it art. Most people have been referring to it as "the naked exhibit" because it does have live naked people on display. It is an exhibit featuring the art of Marina Abramović, I'm not going to go into detail as to who she is because that is why we have Google and Wikipedia, though I will comment on a few bits of her work.

The first time you see her work when you walk into the museum is actually seeing her. It is an exhibit called The Artist is Present, and she is sitting in a wooden chair wearing a full length single color dress and staring across the table at anyone who wants to sit and be apart of the exhibit. Right from the get-go I'm already scratching my head. What about this is art? What is she trying to say and is it anything worth listening to? The visitor is allowed to do what they want but generally they do exactly what she is doing, sitting, staring across the table and not talking. They claim you can do whatever you want, a part of me wanted to wait in line to be able to sit there and talk about the NFL draft with her and see what her feelings were on the Jets trading Leon Washington for a 5th round pick, but I did not.

The next part of her exhibit is upstairs and is contains nudity, hooray! This was the most uncomfortable nudity I have ever witnessed. I wonder if that was the point, because as I walk into the room containing a nude woman on a wall with a square spotlight on her I'm completely baffled as to what to do. I don't want to make eye contact with her because what am I going to do, smile and say "hey"? Perhaps that is the point.

She has other work that does not involve nudity and are equally baffling. There is a 20 minute video of her eating a raw onion and lamenting about life. I'm not sure what the difference would be if I filmed myself eating a cupcake and talking about the weather, but what do I know? There is another video of her and her collaborator at the time yelling at each other, which is next to a video of them making out, which is around the corner from a video of her screaming while laying on a bed upside down. Confused yet?

The difficulty I have with this is that I'm not sure I would call it art. You can argue that my definition of art is narrow minded, which might be true. I have a very set definition in my head of what constitutes art, or at the very least what I believe constitutes art. To me, watching a nude man run into a giant rubber band until he can't go any further and then running back where he started and doing it all over again ad infinitum, this is not art.

In the end art is subjective and this is only one man's opinion. However, I can't help but think any one can do what this woman does, as long as they can do so with a straight face and come up with a convincing background story as to what it means. With that being said, come see my modern art exhibit which will be me laying in bed trying to fall asleep while explaining why I've never seen a Mighty Duck movie.