Video: February 2012 Archives
Celebrated performance artist Marina Abramović sat down with the Smart to talk about her work and how the public helps to complete a performance piece.
"I think that performance in the deeper sense is about hospitality," Abramović says. "It's that you actually open yourself to the public and show your vulnerability, your contradictions, and be there in the full sense, for them."
Abramović will expand on these topics during a sold-out lecture on performance and its future tonight in the Loop. The lecture is presented by the Smart and the Chicago Humanities Festival. The Smart's exhibition Feast includes Communist Body / Fascist Body, an influential piece by Abramović and her longtime collaborator Ulay.
From WBEZ's Art/Work series, a video about photographer Laura Letinsky's work and practice. Feast includes several photographs by Letinsky, and she will create a new work for the exhibition that's based off of a meal she will prepare for her fellow Feast artists.
Letinsky is a professor at the University of Chicago, is teaching a related course about the intersections between food and contemporary art, and has an exhibition on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago through April 17, 2012.
"Is this art? Could this be art?"
Lee Mingwei discusses the history of The Dining Project, a participatory artwork where he and a guest dine in the museum after hours within an elegant installation. Lee will be hosting a handful of dinners at the Smart, with guests chosen by lottery.