Drawings of Portraits in the Presence of Marina Abramović

In 2018, as a means to practice sketching, I started a project where I did blind, continuous line drawings of the portraits taken of people after they attended The Artist is Present. Admittedly, I broke the continuity of the lines a lot, but I tried to embody the spirit of the practice—to feel my way through the space on the page rather than relying on my site.

The Artist is Present was the titular performance art piece debuted at the MOMA in New York in Spring 2010 as part of a retrospective of Abramović’s work. In the piece, Marina Abramović sat at a simple table in the atrium of MOMA while spectators sat silently opposite her and maintained eye contact with the artist.

Photographer Marco Anelli captured 1,545 portraits of spectators during the run of the performance, 260 of which are featured on his website. There is scant information about the subject of the portrait, save for a portrait number and how long they sat with Abramović, the latter of which I’ve used to title my drawings.

Over the years, I’ve done only 12 drawings of the portraits. I enjoy that the result mimics the way a message gets twisted in a game of Telephone, making more obvious the fact that this is art made from art made from art.

  • Sketch of what appears to be a young man with golden hair and thin lips
    28 minutes
  • Sketch of a woman with dark, curly hair
    164 minutes
  • Sketch of a woman with brown hair and red cheeks
    26 minutes
  • Sketch of a woman with brown hair and possibly dark makeup around her eyes
    3 minutes
  • Sketch of a man with glasses and slight beard
    18 minutes
  • Sketch of a woman with large eyes, prominent lips and messy black hair
    1 hour 17 minutes
  • Sketch of what appears to be young woman with dark hair and dark eyes
    29 minutes
  • Sketch of Marina Abramovic wearing red lipstick, eyeshadow and shiny black hair
    6 hours 26 minutes
  • sketch of a male with long black hair. a tear on his right cheek.
    5 minutes
  • Sketch of a dark-haired woman with a hijab
    16 minutes
  • Sketch of what appears to be a young man with golden hair and light eyes encircled in red
    3 minutes
  • Sketch of a flaxen haired woman with amber eyes
    11 minutes

As a strange aside, the first drawing I did on August 6th, 2018 is of Brian. Brian has, what he calls, a bit of a “curse” of going viral on the internet. I heard about this guy on an episode of Reply All, where he talks about all the strange places his face has shown up and gotten him in trouble.

Anyway, I wanted to put the portraits out there and encourage others to try one! It’s quite simple:

  1. Select a portrait you like and pull it up on your screen.
  2. Grab a thin/medium-tip black felt pen (5-7mm is what I use) and paper that’s good for inks (printer paper or cardstock is fine). Place your pen on the page and look at the portrait. Slowly start following the lines in the portrait with your eyes, and while doing that, trace what you’re seeing with the pen on the paper, but don’t look at the paper. Proceed until you feel you have followed all the lines of the face.
  3. Grab a small bundle of pencil crayons or coloured pencils and add tones where it feels right. I worked with a limited palette of four brown hues, a white, and a black.
  4. Write the title and date. Admire.

Good luck with your art, and if you feel bold, share what you did in the comments.

References

Abramović, Marina. The Artist is Present. 2010, Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Anelli, Marco. Portraits in the Presence of Marina Abramović. DAMIANI, 2012.

“Permanent Record.” Reply All from Spotify, 13 June 2019, open.spotify.com/episode/0eWJleTlWawIpQ16TZdMig.

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