Yes / While ‘charisma’ can be found in dramatic and theatrical parlance, the term enjoys only minimal critical attention in theatre and performance studies, with scholarly work on presence and actor training methods taking the lead in defining charisma’s supposed ‘undefinable’ quality. Within this context, the article examines the appearance of the term ‘charismatic space’ in relation to Marina Abramović’s retrospective The Artist is Present at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2010. Here Abramović uses this term to describe the shared space in which performer and spectator connect bodily, psychically, and spiritually through a shared sense of presence and energy in the moment of performance. Yet this is a space arguably constituted through a number of dialectical tensions and contradictions which, in dialogue with existing theatre scholarship on charisma, can be further understood by drawing on insights into charismatic leaders and charismatic authority in leadership studies. By examining the performance and its documentary traces in terms of dialectics we consider the political and ethical implications for how we think about power relations between artist/spectator in a neoliberal, market-driven art context. Here an alternative approach to conceiving of and facilitating a charismatic space is proposed which instead foregrounds what Bracha L. Ettinger calls a ‘matrixial encounter-event’: A relation of coexistence and compassion rather than dominance of self over other; performer over spectator; leader over follower. By illustrating the dialectical tensions in The Artist is Present, we consider the potential of the charismatic space not as generated through the seductive power or charm of an individual whose authority is tied to his/her ‘presence’, but as something co-produced within an ethical and relational space of trans-subjectivity.

In this essay I analyze the performative aspects relating to Marina Abramović's The Artist Is Present, which took place in spring 2010 at MoMA in New York, from the context of the artist and work, institution and documentation. In this performance work, for the duration of the exhibition, Abramović sits completely still opposite another chair where anyone from the audience may sit. The art arises through this participation. The audience are not only viewers, but also the observed, thus becoming part of the work and the negotiation of this exchange of living gazes. The performative pervades this work on multiple levels. The Artist Is Present reached a surprisingly large public, of over 500,000 visitors and continues to circulate in the form of blogs, documentary film and photography long after the exhibition duration. In order to conduct a performative analysis of The Artist Is Present I apply the theories of Peggy Phelan, regarding the relationships between the political and representative visibility in contemporary culture. Phelan's explanation of the unmarked field reveals the importance of the 'other' to see oneself. This is especially relevant in Abramović's performance which challenges and revolves around self reflection in the other. Phelan's theories are also pertinent in analyzing what Abramović as the performer and her work create for re-negotiations around positions and the gaze. The assertions of Carol Duncan in considering the Art Museum as a place of ritual are applied to the ritualistic context of The Artist Is Present, which may well build up a form of liminality. Duncan's claims of the museum as ritual in combination with Phelan's theories provide interesting grounds to further investigate the effect and eventual mythology of the performance work and artist. How do these contexts of institution, documentation, artist and art, which I propose contribute to a kind of myth creation, operate in a ritualized performance art work? This essay analyses these contexts together in order to find a connection between the performative aspects and the effect that they have on the viewer and receiver, which have contributed to the public success of this exhibition. Despite that we now live in an era of reproduction, perhaps the wishes of our era still revolve around a cult value? That even in this post industrial age of reproduction, new needs are recreated for mythology and cult? Or can it be that the reverse is true, that the rites and symbols speak to us before the mythology has fully arisen?

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2016-12-23T11:50:09Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciana Chen.pdf: 12140738 bytes, checksum: b5180e8f08ec6325be5313d22553116f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-23T11:50:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciana Chen.pdf: 12140738 bytes, checksum: b5180e8f08ec6325be5313d22553116f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-06 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The present work commits to the enunciation display applied by Marina Abramović, analyzing how it produces presence modes and meaning effects. With a corpus of 100 works by the artist, from the 1970s to 2015 and enunciations that provide mediatic visibility to her from 2010 to 2016, the study aims to map the enunciative devices that trigger aesthesic and pathemic meanings and to unveil the problem of how these promote the presence modes of her public to the point of changing them from observer to part of the artistic action. It takes as a first hypothesis that through the feedback of information about Abramović and her actions, her mediatic visibility strategy diversifies her audience at the same time that promotes the doing with the body and the feeling by reactive adjustment. The second one implies that Abramović Method effectiveness, developed by herself, occurs by contagion of the presences of her very audience, proponing the retaking of the body in virtual communication era, being these ones the devices applied to seduce and modalize the addressee so that it participates. Fomented by the gaps found in art history, centered on the artist process, on the artistic object and/or on the production context, this investigation is based on discursive semiotics, which considers the communicative and communicational relations between performance and audience, the interaction regimes between audience and art and the sensible lived experience. Algirdas Julian Greimas, Eric Landowski, Ana Claudia de Oliveira and Eugênio Trivinho stand out among the authors that substantiate the investigation. The methodology comprises corpus analysis based on the meaning generative process, the mapping of Abramović’s visibility strategies and the analysis on the Method. The results point out: the self-conscience thematic and the immaterial and material values predominance, the emphasis on the body figure of the participants with Abramović Method; the effectiveness of the artist’s communicational strategy and the triggering of actions against her procedure, all of them feeding back her figure and proving the first hypothesis right; the communicative effectiveness of the Method through the presences contagion, which can be mediated by electronic devices, making feel simultaneously to the Method spread, which presents itself as condition of modalizing enunciation of alterity’s being and doing; the feeling of our time happens through reactive adjustment mediated by electronic devices and reveals itself as one more product in bunkerization era / O presente trabalho se debruça sobre o aparato da enunciação empregado por Marina Abramović, analisando como produz os modos de presença e efeitos de sentido. Com o corpus de 100 trabalhos da artista da década de 1970 a 2015 e enunciados que lhe dão visibilidade mediática de 2010 a 2016, o estudo objetiva mapear os mecanismos enunciativos desencadeadores de sentidos estésicos e patêmicos e desvelar o problema de como promovem os modos de presença de seu público a ponto de transformá-lo de observador a parte da ação artística. Toma como hipótese primeira, que a estratégia de visibilidade mediática de Abramović com a retroalimentação de informações sobre ela e suas ações diversifica seu público ao mesmo tempo que promove o fazer com o corpo e o sentir pelo ajustamento reativo. A segunda é de que a eficácia comunicativa do Método Abramović por ela desenvolvido ocorre pelo contágio das presenças do próprio público, propondo a retomada do corpo na era da comunicação virtual, sendo esses os mecanismos empregados para a sedução e modalização do destinatário para que ele participe. Fomentada pelas lacunas encontradas na história da arte, centrada no processo do artista, no objeto artístico e/ou no contexto de produção, essa investigação fundamenta-se na semiótica discursiva, que considera as relações comunicativas e comunicacionais entre a performance e público, os regimes de interação entre público e arte e a experiência sensível vivida. Dentre os autores que alicerçam a investigação, destacam-se Algirdas Julian Greimas, Eric Landowski, Ana Claudia de Oliveira e Eugênio Trivinho. A metodologia compreende a análise do corpus com base no percurso gerativo do sentido, o mapeamento das estratégias de visibilidade de Abramović e a análise do Método. Os resultados apontam: o predomínio da temática da autoconsciência, dos valores imaterial e material e a ênfase na figura do corpo dos participantes com o Método Abramović; a eficácia da estratégia comunicacional da artista e o desencadeamento de ações contrárias ao procedimento dela, todos retroalimentadores de sua figura provando a primeira hipótese; a eficácia comunicativa do Método por meio do contágio das presenças, podendo ser mediado por dispositivos eletrônicos, fazendo sentir simultaneamente à propagação do Método, que apresenta-se como condição de enunciação modalizadora do ser e do fazer da alteridade; o sentir do nosso tempo se dá por meio do ajustamento reativo mediado pelos dispositivos eletrônicos e revela-se como mais um produto na era da bunkerização

Uppsatsens ämne berör re-performance som utställningsmetod och den fysiska kroppen som utställningsobjekt. Materialet består av Marina Abramovićs retrospektiva utställningen The Cleaner (2017) på Moderna Museet och tre re-performanceverk som framförs av tränade aktörer inne på utställningsområdet. Uppsatsens syfte och frågeställningar består av att undersöka vilka egenskaper re-performance som utställningsmetod har och hur det upplevs att betrakta fysiska kroppar som utställningsobjekt. För att besvara detta används Maurice Merleau-Pontys Phenomenology of Perception (1945) och hans fenomenologiska syn på ett förkroppsligat varande. Varje re-performanceverk analyseras utifrån några utvalda fenomenologiska verktyg presenterade av Merleau-Ponty och utvecklas med hjälp av tidigare forskning som berör relationen mellan fenomenologi och performancekonst. Ur de fenomenologiska verksanalyserna framträder resultat som jag anser är talande för betraktandet av fysiska kroppar som utställningsobjekt och performance i stort, som exempelvis en förståelse av performance som ett sätt iscensätta fenomenologi genom praktik och handling. Betraktandet av performance är beroende av ett performativt assemblage som bildas, samt av empati och intersubjektivitet. Resultatet visar även att re- performance inte enbart kan benämnas som en form av konstdokumentation, utan att betraktandet av dessa även innebär ett betraktande av självständiga performanceverk.

Uppsatsens ämne berör re-performance som utställningsmetod och den fysiska kroppen som utställningsobjekt. Materialet består av Marina Abramovićs retrospektiva utställningen The Cleaner (2017) på Moderna Museet och tre re-performanceverk som framförs av tränade aktörer inne på utställningsområdet. Uppsatsens syfte och frågeställningar består av att undersöka vilka egenskaper re-performance som utställningsmetod har och hur det upplevs att betrakta fysiska kroppar som utställningsobjekt. För att besvara detta används Maurice Merleau-Pontys Phenomenology of Perception (1945) och hans fenomenologiska syn på ett förkroppsligat varande. Varje re-performanceverk analyseras utifrån några utvalda fenomenologiska verktyg presenterade av Merleau-Ponty och utvecklas med hjälp av tidigare forskning som berör relationen mellan fenomenologi och performancekonst. Ur de fenomenologiska verksanalyserna framträder resultat som jag anser är talande för betraktandet av fysiska kroppar som utställningsobjekt och performance i stort, som exempelvis en förståelse av performance som ett sätt iscensätta fenomenologi genom praktik och handling. Betraktandet av performance är beroende av ett performativt assemblage som bildas, samt av empati och intersubjektivitet. Resultatet visar även att re- performance inte enbart kan benämnas som en form av konstdokumentation, utan att betraktandet av dessa även innebär ett betraktande av självständiga performanceverk.

This master's thesis aims to investigate disability researcher Tobin Sieber's conceptualization of disability aesthetics. This concept is investigated in relation to performances by Marina Abramović, specifically Rhythm 2 (1974), Rhythm 0 (1974), Lips of Thomas (1975) and Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful (1975). The thesis examines questions about the possibility of applying the concept of disability aesthetics to an able-bodied artist's production. A disability aesthetic is characterized by representations that shape and thematize deficiency, damage and suffering. Also, a transformative process from able-bodied to disabled. The thesis concludes that the concept is more or less applicable to Abramovic’s production, since the transformative process of representing a disability aesthetic is something temporarily linked to the performance. The thesis also discusses that further research may instead examine and formulate the aesthetics of pain.

The thesis examines challenges museum curators face when outsourced performers – whose role it is to embody the work of other artists – are included in exhibition projects. The research questions are: What are the practical, juridical and ethical challenges that come with situating outsourced performance labour in the museum setting? What does the inclusion of live performance in exhibition projects mean for the role of the museum curator? Two exhibition cases in Stockholm are studied in the thesis: Marina Abramović – The Cleaner (2017) at Moderna Museet and Dora García, I Always Tell the Truth at Bonniers Konsthall (2018–19). The material consists of digital surveys that were sent out to employed performers from each exhibition case as well as interviews that were conducted with both performers and curatorial staff. The material was examined using theories on affective labour and the theoretical notion of de-skilling and re-skilling of acquired competences.  The thesis shows that the practical challenges include the architectural conditions of museum buildings, insufficient prior knowledge on what working with performers entail, short project timespans and limited exhibition budgets. The juridical challenges include a lack of union recommendations for performance in museums and the difficulty of situating reperformances of historical works that in its form and duration may go against national labour regulations. The ethical challenges include commodification of performers’ subjectivity through instances of affective labour and mechanisms of objectification. In turn, both the outsourced performer and the museum curator turned performance curator inhabits a precarious working situation. The role of the performance curator is highly administrational and organisationally tedious in its positioning between curatorship, performing arts production and human resource management. Additionally, it entails a prodigious amount of affective labour in the reproductive mode – of emotional investments, conflict resolution and social liaison.

This dissertation is a study of the architecture of commodity capital: the display window. Taking as a starting point the work of Henri Lefebvre and Goerg Simmel, this dissertation understands the shop window to be a mode of display, what I define as “the logic of the vitrine,” that has shaped the way the world appears. Tracing a genealogy from the Parisian Arcades to the twentieth-century department store, this project explores the relationships between gender, sexuality, race, and architecture. Feminist critiques of commodity desire and display illuminate how the shop window is as important to our understandings of capitalism as is the commodity. Through feminist, queer, postcolonial, and anti-racist readings of material and commodity culture, this dissertation considers the shop window to be a site of subject formation. This dissertation also examines how designers, artists, and architects have explored the display of the shop window through a series of case studies, including Marina Abramovic’s Role Exchange, Gene Moore’s “drag” in Bonwit Teller’s shop windows, the making of a black mannequin, and Lynn Hershman Leeson’s site-specific installation 25 Windows. This dissertation concludes with a consideration of the architectural role reversals of the shop window and the gallery; the work of Silvia Kolbowski and Elmgreen and Dragset’s Prada Marfa ground this analysis. Artists have disrupted the display of the shop window, transforming the architecture of commodity capital into a space for resistance and critique.

This thesis examines works of theatre and film that explore a refusal of acting. Acting has traditionally been considered as something false or as pretending, in opposition to everyday life, which has been considered as something real and truthful. This has resulted in a desire to refuse acting, evident in the tradition of the anti-theatrical prejudice where acting is considered to be seductive and dangerous. All the works that I examine in this thesis are relatively recent and all of them explore the paradox that in our (postmodern) times a gradual reversal has occurred where everyday life is seen as more and more false or as pretending or simulating (ie. containing acting and theatricality) and conversely, acting in theatre and film has become the place where people have begun searching for reality and truth and where ‘acting’ and pretending in life can be revealed and refused. The result of this paradox - and what I also discuss as a confusion of acting and living - is that the place in which acting can be refused has shifted; the ethical desire to refuse acting (in theatre and in life) is turning up in the aesthetic domain of acting itself. In my first chapter I study works by filmmaker István Szabó and playwright Werner Fritsch, who represent the desire to refuse acting in the context of fascism where theatrical and filmic spectacle was used by the Nazis to seduce the population and where actors during this period also experienced an inability to separate their political and artistic lives. In my second chapter I look at the way Genet’s The Balcony and Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution explore the desire to refuse acting as a result of a confusion of acting and living in the context of sexual (sadomasochistic) role-play. And in my third chapter I examine the way Warhol’s The Chelsea Girls, von Trier’s The Idiots and Affleck’s I’m Still Here represent a refusal of acting and theatricality altogether, responding to the way that ‘acting’ in life may have become an all-pervasive substitute (a simulation) for living. Foundational to the development of this thesis and a major source of material is my analysis of three theatrical productions with Free Theatre Christchurch, directed by Peter Falkenberg, in which I was involved as an actor and in which a refusal of acting was explored.