Marina Abramovic: "The Artist is Present" at the New York MoMA

What do you do if you have to squeeze between a naked man and woman?

That's the question facing visitors to "The Artist is Present," the retrospective show of pioneering performance-artist Marina Abramovic at the New York MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), a show which has attracted a lot of attention, and stirred up controversy, for its live nude performers on the museum's sixth floor.

It's also generated controversy on the completely different question of whether it is really possible to have a retrospective - to recreate pieces from the past - of performance art, which by its very nature seems to be of the moment.

The show's title, "The Artist is Present," seems to anticipate that second question, raising the issue of what it means to recreate in the present an event that took place in the past. The title also has several other meanings:

The artist, Marina Abramovic, is literally present in the museum, sitting in the vast second floor atrium space all day, nearly every day that the museum is open, during the entire run of the show from March 14 to May 31, 2010. She sits in a chair, motionless, wearing a flowing dress (sometimes red, sometimes white, sometimes blue) across from a museum goer who has been brave enough to venture into the space and sit in the chair across from her (sometimes with a table between them, sometimes not) and engage in a silent communication with the artist, while crowds look on from the edges of the space and from vantage points overlooking the atrium on the floors above.

The word "present" in the title also refers to the Zen-like quality of being in the present moment, and also to having a "presence" - which Abramovic does, her charismatic presence being palpable to those who are watching.

The performers upstairs, recreating some of Abramovic's past performance pieces, many from the 1970's, don't have her exceptional charisma, but the show is fascinating, starting from the first room, where the competing noise of many videos being played simultaneous creates a disorienting, almost overwhelming atmosphere.

And then there is the infamous nude pair in the doorway, standing close enough together that you have to turn sideways in order to squeeze through. The piece, called "Imponderabilia," is a recreation of a piece from 1977, when Marina and her partner Ulay similarly stood in a doorway in the entrance to a gallery.

Because you need to turn sideways to get past the pair, you have to decide which one you will face. I faced the woman, as did the majority of people going through. Everyone has a theory about why this is the case. Mine is that while the whole experience of passing between the pair, trying not to touch either, is uncomfortable, it feels somewhat less transgressive to encounter a naked woman than it does a naked man in a museum, simply because naked women are so often on display in paintings on museum walls, far more than naked men are. Within the context of a museum, female nakedness feels more like the status quo.

The 2010 MoMA recreation of "Imponderabilia" is different from the original version in two ways. First, the performing pair are not always a man and a woman - all gender combinations are represented at different times. Second, you are not forced to walk between them. The museum has provided another way to pass from the first room to the next, a second doorway, for those too uncomfortable with the idea of trying to get through the naked pair. Abramovic was not happy with this concession, according to the guide on the tour I took. I think it was a good idea, though, considering how much of a departure this whole exhibit already is from the kinds of shows MoMA usually presents.

There was far more to the show than I can describe here, but if you are interested in learning more, I recommend two sites. First is the official site for the exhibit. The second is an article for the site New York Social Diary by photographer Jill Krementz (wife of the late Kurt Vonnegut). The many excellent photographs and accompanying captions do a great job of capturing the overall feel, and many of the details, of the exhibition - the next best thing to being there yourself. (Not safe for work - contains nudity.)