Marina Abramović, Portraits in the Presence of Marina Abramovic (Hand signed by BOTH Marina Abramovic and photographer Marco Anelli), 2021

Marina Abramović

Portraits in the Presence of Marina Abramovic (Hand signed by BOTH Marina Abramovic and photographer Marco Anelli), 2021

Hardback monograph with no dust jacket as issued (Hand signed by BOTH Marina Abramovic and photographer Marco Anelli)

Hand signed by BOTH Marina Abramovic and photographer Marco Anelli on official bookplates

12 × 8 1/2 × 1 inches

Unframed

Provenance:
Acquired from the artist's collection

Makes a terrific gift!
Hand signed by BOTH Marina Abramovic and photographer Marco Anelli on official bookplates. This monograph was acquired by the present owner from the artist's personal collection

Book information:
Publisher: Damiani Ltd
English; Hardcover; 208 pages with color illustrations

Publisher's blurb:
After becoming an internet sensation, Marco Anelli's powerful portraits of sitters in the historic 2010 Marina Abramovic performance at The Museum of Modern Art, New York are now collected and available in their entirety in this volume. The centerpiece of the landmark retrospective Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present was Abramovic herself, who sat silently in the museum's atrium, inviting visitors to take a seat across from her for as long as they chose. She sat every day for the run of the show--716 hours and 30 minutes--and faced more than 1,500 people, whose participation completed the work. Marco Anelli's photographic project captured every interaction, taking a portrait of each participant and noting the time they spent in the chair. Just as Abramovic's piece concerned duration, the photographs give the viewer a chance to experience the performance from Abramovic's perspective. They reveal both dramatic and mundane moments, and speak to the humanity of such interactions, just as the performance itself did. The resultant photographs are mesmerizing and intense, putting a face to the world of art lovers while capturing what they shared during their contact with the artist.

More about Marina Abramovic:
Marina Abramović (Serbian Cyrillic: Марина Абрамовић, pronounced [marǐːna abrǎːmoʋitɕ]; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, the relationship between the performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. Being active for over four decades, Abramović refers to herself as the "grandmother of performance art". She pioneered a new notion of identity by bringing in the participation of observers, focusing on "confronting pain, blood, and physical limits of the body". In 2007, she founded the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI), a non-profit foundation for performance art.

About Marco Anelli:
After becoming an internet sensation, Marco Anelli's powerful portraits of sitters in the historic 2010 Marina Abramovic performance at the Museum of Modern Art are now collected and available in their entirety in the Damiani monograph, Portraits in the Presence of Marina Abramovic.

The centerpiece of The Artist is Present, the landmark retrospective of this pioneer of performance art's oeuvre, was Abramovic herself, who sat silently in the museum's atrium inviting visitors to take a seat across from her for as long as they chose. She sat every day for the run of the show—716 hours and 30 minutes— and faced over 1500 people, whose involvement completed the work. Photographer and collaborator Anelli documented every interaction, taking a portrait of each participant and noting the time they spent in the chair.

Just as Abramovic's piece concerned duration, the photographs give the viewer a chance to experience the performance from Abramovic's perspective. They reveal both dramatic and mundane moments, and speak to the humanity of such interactions, just as the performance itself did. The resultant photographs are mesmerizing and intense, putting a face to the world of art lovers while capturing what they shared during their contact with the artist.

Reminiscent of Walker Evans's subway photographs and Harry Callahan's Women Lost in Thought, this powerful series speaks to photography's capacity to explore the human experience from an unobserved view-point. While Anelli is not engaging the sitters or Abramovic directly, his meta-performance as gathered in Portraits in the Presence of Marina Abramovic is a compelling testament to the cathartic power of the gaze and our connection to one another.

Marco Anelli's (born in Rome, 1968) work has been widely published and exhibited throughout Italy, including at the Museo della Permanente, Milan, and IX International Biennial of Photography, Turin. He is the recipient of several awards, including the Mario Giacomelli Memorial Prize and Orvieto Photography Award. His collaboration with Marina Abramovic began in 2007.

Courtesy of Danziger Gallery