The Museumgoer is, Against All Odds, Present

Artinfo reported today on a video game created by one Pippin Barr, a “Copenhagen-based game creator and scholar.” The game, which has the look of something you might have played on your Atari, begins when your avatar enters the doors of MoMA; he pays the $25 admission fee (yes, it’s gone up), passes through a sparsely hung gallery, and arrives at the line for The Artist is Present, the much-talked about Marina Abramovic performance which took place in the museum’s atrium last year. For those who could not attend the performance, it was streamed live on MoMA’s website. For those who missed that as well, there is Barr’s version.

Regular reader(s) of this blog may recall from a previous post that I am a bit squeamish about art that threatens to put me, the viewer, on display. It therefore never crossed my mind to sit across from Abramovic and stare awkwardly into her eyes for an indeterminate amount of time in front of scores of onlookers. Braver museumgoers than I, however, happily queued up for this opportunity. This is the experience that the player of Barr’s game endures. When I played the game, there were twenty-four people ahead of me. If you leave the game to do other things, thinking that when you return it will be your turn to face Abramovic, you are mistaken. Aggressive museumgoers who come in behind you will take your place if you don’t move forward when the line does.

Barr’s version of The Artist is Present is hardly an accurate record of the performance, but it perfectly captures the frustration which often accompanies a trip to the always-crowded Museum of Modern Art. The crowds were especially thick during Abramovic’s retrospective, which received more than its fare share of press coverage for its inclusion of nude performers and for Abramovic’s incredible feat of endurance—she sat at that table in the atrium every day, all day, for the entire duration of the show (with rare exceptions).

Barr’s game draws our attention to the endurance of the other participants in The Artist is Present. More forcefully, perhaps, it illuminates the much more banal, and certainly less celebrated, acts of endurance performed by visitors to MoMA and other popular museums every day. Ordinary people show up, pay their $25 fees, and patiently—because it requires so much patience—wait their turns to see some of the greatest art ever created; and sometimes, even, some not-so-great art.