German curator Klaus Biesenbach, then chief curator at large at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, invited the artist to be the subject of the institution’s first performance art retrospective in 2010, with 50 works spanning her entire career, including re-performances of historic pieces that lived only in documentation. The show would be called “The Artist Is Present,” the artist told Theroux, mimicking the convention of invitations to artists’ opening receptions, which often included the words “The artist will be present.” “The curator, Klaus Bisenbach, said to me, ‘Okay, the show is going to be ‘The Artist Is Present,’ because you’re always in the work.
Author: Brian Boucher
Published at: 2025-11-18 21:31:32
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