And We’re Done: An Archive of Livetweets of Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present

On May 31, 2010, I livetweeted the end of Marina Abramovic’s MoMA performance, The Artist Is Present, as experienced online via Marinacam. A few other folks were tweeting in person, including artists Man Bartlett (@manbartlett), Amy White (@parallelarts), and @museumnerd.

Over the years, this collection of tweets has been one of a few small things that kept me from deleting all my old tweets. I’m documenting them here to remove that obstacle. For the moment, they’re still visible on Twitter here.

The tweets are interspersed with screenshots from the Marina Abramovic Webcam tumblr.

In addition to backing these up from twitter, this post was prompted by Abramovic’s announcement that she is releasing an NFT series, 25 FPS, comprised of frames of video of her sitting on a horse holding a white flag, part of her 2001 video work, The Hero. Her talk at Art Basel was literally titled The NFT is Present, and I could not be more nonplussed if she said she was minting NFTs of the 1545 headshots Marco Anelli took of her sitters, including my own damn face.

The artists were present

Anyway, this livetweet really was the beginning of the end for me with Abramovic. In an instant, the Artist’s presence was replaced by the Celebrity, as she gladhanded for the camera crews she’d brought for herself. The gala that followed, where she appeared in a custom Givenchy jacket made from 127 endangered pythons, and fed guests chocolate casts of her own lips, felt for a moment like an absolute betrayal, but really, it was all perfectly on point. And so is a late and desperate scramble for relevance by selling boring af selfies of someone who brags about not knowing how to write an email. Anyway, enjoy!

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3:01 PM, image via marinaabramovicwebcam.tumblr.com

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4:11 PM, image via marinaabramovicwebcam.tumblr.com

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4:22 PM, image via marinaabramovicwebcam.tumblr.com

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4:25 PM, image via marinaabramovicwebcam.tumblr.com

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[so givenchy spon gets you the third to last seat at] 4:29 PM, image via marinaabramovicwebcam.tumblr.com

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4:33 PM, image via marinaabramovicwebcam.tumblr.com

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previously, related: How do you solve a problem like Klaus?