Marina Abramovic has unveiled the architectural designs for her eagerly anticipated performance art centre – The Marina Abramovic Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art.
Iconic architect Rem Koolhaas has been enlisted to design and build the museum in Hudson, New York – a space exclusively dedicated to performance art pieces with the duration of ‘six hours minimum’. Four years ago, Abramovic bought a massive ex-tennis sports centre within two hours from NYC, but the project was put on hold since she has been extremely busy – most notably with her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 2010, ‘Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present’.
Now $15 million plans have been revealed to transform the ex-tennis centre into a 23,000-square-foot performance space, which will feature specially designed lighting and furniture. Two special rooms have also been unveiled; the Levitation Hall, in which visitors can hover above beds of weight sensitive magnetic fields; and the self-explanatory Crystal Chamber, filled with minerals to make visitors focus their mental and physical energies.
Due to the extreme length of the proposed performance pieces, viewers will be invited to watch the works unfold in specially made wheeled chairs complete with its own light and dining tables. If/when visitors fall asleep, ‘the attendant will roll you to the sleeping area’ of the theatre. But, ‘When you wake up, raise your hand and you’ll be wheeled back’, Abramovic promised.
Construction is expected to begin at the end of 2013, with the opening of the centre projected for late 2014. Serge Le Borgne, a Paris gallerist and curator, will serve as director of the institute.
Besides being an exhibition space, the centre will also function as a school to teach young performance artists the ‘Abramovic Method’, whereby the roles of artist and viewer become interchangeable in the process of the performance.
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