An integral part of The Maybe's incarnation at MoMA in 2013 is that there is no published schedule for its appearance, no artist's statement released, no no museum statement beyond this brief context, no public profile or image issued. Those who find it chance upon it for themselves, live and in real—shared—time: now we see it, now we don't.Presumably, "no no" is a typo. I love the way the celebrity's need to control her own time/sanity is — by the usual museum-bullshit text — deployed to give depth and mystery to the art.
I think it's a great opportunity to observe everyone other than her, as they relate to a celebrity and to a work of art in a museum.
Will they get right up close? Will they display the attitudes of politeness/deference that are ordinarily used around a stranger/sleeping person or will they get that ponderous studiousness that people summon up when they are looking at art?
If I were Tilda, I'd have some confederates in the crowd to get right up to the glass and point at my body parts and say provocative things. Press your nose against the glass right by my face. Huff some breath on the glass and write words in it. Have someone dressed as a guard come over and enter into a dialogue that begins as a simple don't-touch admonishment and spirals slowly into a My-Dinner-With-Andre-type inquiry about what is art.
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Wasn't there a McGuffin like this on "Bosom Buddies"?
PS and very OT, but far more important , the Pencil Neck shot (but not killed) by Iranian bodyguard.
What is the point? Where is the artistry? What am I missing?
My favorite celebrities are the ones I've never heard of.
Remind Tilda to pass on the baked bean dinner the night before!
"go right up to a celebrity and gape and her"
at?
The fun begins when I hook up my vacuum pump. Art is where you find it.
I think it would be especially artistic if:
a) The claim is that it is an ultra-realistic sculpture, but is really the actress.
Or
b) The claim is that it is really the actress in the glass box, but really it is a sculpture.
The art being how people react when they suspect what's there isn't what they are told it is.
Carol Burnett in "Once Upon a Mattress" springs to mind.
My comment earlier, in the Cafe open thread downstream:
This sounds like it's right up Ann's alley:
Tilda Swinton Sleeping in a Box in NYC
Seems that the eclectic actress is doing a bit of performance art called "The Maybe" by sleeping in a transparent glass box at MOMA.
Why is it called "The Maybe"? Because she may be there or she may not. She apparently will be showing up on random days, so it's sort of like Schrödinger's Cat, except there will be no uncertainty about whether she's alive or dead, just whether she's in the box or not.
Of course, you know somebody will show up and tweet about whether she's there or not at the beginning of the day. Social media will be the death of uncertainty performance art.
3/24/13, 10:37 AM
That looks like a pretty flimsy box. My performance art will be to turn it over and record her freaking out for my YouTube art display.
Put a bottle of poison in there with her.
If one penny of funding is coming from the government it's too much. Not one poor child should miss a meal to support sleeping in box art.
Not one poor child should miss a meal to support sleeping in box art.
I miss penny meals.
Does this have to feature an actress? They could do it every day and use street people who need a warm place to sleep for a few hours. That would cause a lot of comment, which is apparently the object of performance art.
I hope she doesn't drool. I guess that's the part that people think is so difficult.
I happened to be there and used the opportunity to draw her portrait. I'll post it when I get my scanner out of storage.
I would stand in line to see this for the same reason I stood in line to see the three-headed woman at a traveling carnival show.
Is it art? Yes, if a carnival freak show is art.
I would stand in line to see this for the same reason I stood in line to see the three-headed woman at a traveling carnival show.
Is it art? Yes, if a carnival freak show is art.
People that live in glass boxes shouldn't be stoned.
HuffPoo posted Palladian's drawing.
He added the goat/mermaid demigod in keeping with the AA's bestiality post.
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2013-01-06-SCAN_1_1.jpg
Art or exhibitionism?
When it comes to much so-called performance art, it's a fine line indeed.
I never could decide if Tilda was actually David Bowie on a good or a bad day.
She emotes something magical when awake on the screen.
Not that I've been purposely looking, but I cant remember anything bad that she has done.
I just love her.
Where Julianne Moore spills over, Tilda Swinton rises just beyond that limit, but doesn't spill over.
I like Swinton as an actress very much, but when I read "performance art" Annie Sprinkle comes to mind.
What if you jerk off on the glass?
Will it be cleaned up or would that be considered part of the project?
I always thought someone (or lots of people at the same time) pinching a loaf at a museum would be interesting art.
Then turn out the lights.
My rules about art:
1. If I can do it, it's not art.
2. If I have to ask "Is this art?", it's not art.
The Maybe fails on two counts.
Elsewhere I left this remark: "They should make a sport of museum sleeping. I'd look forward to the doping scandals."
I'd have to be on Vicodin to sleep in a box in broad daylight.
Submerge one of her hands in a glass of warm water.
Spray shaving cream in one of her her hands and tickle her nose with a feather.
Then we can decide if Swinton is dead or alive.
Shrodingers Swinton.
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