The Artist is Present and She Makes Good Pasta For a Former Lover and You Will Cry About It
This is a pleasantly weird and deeply moving documentary about Marina Abramović. If you think you are hard core about anything, this will challenge your standards. In a good way. You will laugh and cry, which is a great combo.
The entire thing is a beauty.
For instance, what better way to come to terms with a dying relationship / partnership with a deeply beloved person than to start at the opposite ends of, and to meet in the middle of, The Great Wall of China? (The Lovers, The Great Wall Walk).
And then, years later, to have that former lover come visit you at your summer house, and to drive them around in your Land Rover, and to cook them pasta?
But then, have MoMA host a retrospective of your life’s work, and perform a new piece, called The Artist is Present.
Have your former lover / partner, sit across from you. Look into his eyes. Have him look into yours. Go back and forth like this. Hold hands. This is magnificent. This is simple and it is so complicated.
It is so deeply beautiful.
You will cry. People will cry. They will walk away from you in awe, not sure what just happened, but something did.
Did they sit across from a witch? A healer? A diety? They will act like you are all of those things, and you kind of are.
Everything comes down to love. Love and ferocious discipline.
When you are sick, you wear the color red and eat tangerines in bed. It is just one of the things that is delightful.
You look amazing with horns on your head.
These are but two things that stand out. There is more.
You should watch it.
Natalie Lyalin is the author of two books of poetry, Blood Makes Me Faint, But I Go For It (Ugly Duckling Presse 2014), and Pink & Hot Pink Habitat (Coconut Books 2009), as well as a chapbook, Try A Little Time Travel (Ugly Duckling Presse 2010). She is the co-editor of Natural History Press. She lives in Philadelphia.
Latest posts by Natalie Lyalin (see all)
- On Gilmore Girls (Part 1 of the GIRLS ARC) - September 22, 2015
- The Artist is Present and She Makes Good Pasta For a Former Lover and You Will Cry About It - September 7, 2015
- Fifteen Thoughts on Happy Valley - August 12, 2015
