the artist is present

and thoughts on lady gaga

I came across a YouTube video this evening featuring Lady Gaga in an interview in which she discusses her thoughts on Marina Abramovic. The first thing I find particularly troubling about this interview is Gaga's get-up. She is so clearly, perhaps overtly, channeling Madonna via the Blonde Ambition years. It is obviously a conscious pop-allusion, she is identifying with Madonna's iconic status. I will start off by saying that I have admired Madonna since the mid-nineties when I was entering adolescence, secretly investigating her music (much to my parent’s dismay). I thought her voice was pretty sweet (contrary to a Gaga friendly article I read in some magazine recently), her fashion was retro noir, she was constantly challenging her ideas of herself, and she was fairly articulate about her ambition, her role in the cultural world, and her desire to be a pop-icon.

That is not to say that Madonna is original. There were others before her that constantly challenged themselves, pushed their own artistic boundaries, reveled in controversy and public attention. Of course. However, there was something sincere about her intentions, something about her devotion to performance art and the avant-garde that was consistent. That certain je no se quos is not something I sense from Lady Gaga.

I heard of Lady Gaga sometime last year. Her name came up every once and again in the media though I was not enthralled or captured enough to care, really. Then somewhere during the winter, she became the center of the pop world and suddenly she was on par with the likes of Madonna, Cher, and other iconic women from the 20th century. Perhaps in our new century, new decade, we need someone like this-- a woman (or person) who breaks the mediocre trends of American culture. I, however, think in our collective desire to fill this gap, we reacted too hastily to Gaga's supposedly calculated performance art. In her efforts to be iconoclastic as a symbol for reappropriation, is her art contextually substantial?

And that is why my dislike quickly became loathing as I listened to her gush over Marina Abramovic. After giving the interviewer an almost verbatim description of what MoMa describes of Rhythm O , a piece Abramovic made in 1974, she continues to bat her eyes and say what a big influence Abramovic has had on her “limit laden” brain.

Then, as if it could not get any worse, Gaga proceeds to talk of Abramovic’s work as “free” and “limitless”.
When I first saw the retrospective, I found the work fascinating. How could someone be so disciplined, poised, and seemingly at ease while performing such a tedious, marathon-like mind-body exercise? I accounted it to meditation, strength, a philosophical devotion toward pushing her own limits, though not necessarily being without limits. I thought it was just so magical. Soon after, I had a conversation with an artist (though not a dancer) about the exhibit. This woman told me that she actually found the retrospective, and Abramovic’s performance in particular, quite uncomfortable, tense, and masochistic. She said that, while she was there Abramovic seemed uncomfortable in her chair. That makes a lot of sense. Sitting (or standing in uncomfortable positions) in front of an audience for hours at a time can test the limits of one’s physical and mental strength. Perhaps we performance artists are masochistic by nature and that is why initially I thought the piece to be meditative.

Upon further thinking, I would actually agree that her work is far more violent, tortured, and uncomfortable than unbound and free. I think it is decidedly bound; the pieces often revolve around an absence of voice, clothing, and freedom (figuratively and literally), and largely surrounds confrontational energy between humans (specifically her and Ulay, her collaborator). There was one piece that featured a young woman perched, naked, on a bike seat, pinned as if being crucified. I would not categorize that as free. Another piece featured a naked man, breathing steadily beneath a human skeleton; another featured two people pointing at each other, their fingers just almost touching. They remain like this for an hour or so at a time. My feeling is that these pieces are intentionally horrid, pushing the very edge of self torture (though done in a very meticulous, calculated, cold way).

I will say that my original thoughts on the exhibit do associate a freedom for Marina’s work. I think that is because I identified the work as her magnum opus, sitting on a chair in a beautiful gown, demonstrating her skill effortlessly. Yet, that is a romanticism of the piece. It is actually very restrained. As was her walk along the Great Wall which took 7 (or so) years of planning. I associate her work (at first glance) as very victorious and positive. But I think there’s a sub textual layer that is far more extreme. Her body of work tends to question human limits but, in my opinion, is intentionally trapped within.

But perhaps Gaga is talking about Abramovic’s creative process and not of the content. Even then I would not describe someone whose work has been consistent, progressive, and politically implicit as free and limitless. Limitless, I think, is such a limited word. What does it even mean? It means without limits, obviously, but even more specifically I think it means without restraint. However, I do think there is a method behind Abramovic’s work. It must be thought out; it in no way reflects surrealism to me.


“I am nothing, I have no sense of art”- Lady Gaga on herself. Is this some warped manifestation of self-idolatry?

Midway through this diatribe, I realized that Abramovic is the one that posed this question for Gaga: Who creates limits?

I then began to wonder if this is all a joke, an act. Was this video constructed by Lady Gaga to both make fun of herself, Madonna, and Abramovic? it certainly seemed rehearsed or premeditated. Is she trying to personify the aggrandized performer to prove a point?
 Is this the very definition of the intentional fallacy?

I am not sure the answers to any of these questions. She is currently one of the most powerful females in the world.  My instinct is that this will all pass soon. I would much rather listen to the musings of Marina herself because I think she is very powerful. So powerful that all she has to do is sit on a chair and millions of people from all corners of the world will watch.

                                                                          Abramovic with Ulay

Here is the link to the infamous video in question:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVY4Whayw0s