Object #1. Marina Abramovic’s “The Communicator” (2012) at Sean Kelly Gallery in Chelsea. Cost: 130,000 EU (approx. 170,000 USD).
I called the gallery today, again: they are still available. These sculptures, both named “The Communicator”, are just so incredibly amazing to me. I assume the name “communicator” comes from the type of crystal points she used. The specific points are called communicators because of how the points terminate, which some people believe enables communication with the “etheric” - spirits and angels, etc. My motives for wanting to have these for myself are egoic. Since I want to use the very same materials (body, wax, quarts crystal) they seem a reflection of how I might want to see myself in my work. On some level my ego thinks that if I own it or copy it, I will be imbued with their beauty, or perhaps their beauty will be imbued with a little of my energy. It’s the same reason we buy anything, isn’t it? I like that they exist as companion pieces and that they oppose and complement (In my mind they are in communication with each other in a manner similar to Rauschenberg’s Factum I and II) each other while being individual sculptures. I suppose if I were going to forge one I would feel compelled to forge the other. I have no idea how I would infiltrate Sean Kelly gallery, but I could start by bribing someone who works there to leave the back door open at night…
Someone pointed out to me that if I tried to make them (interpret them in my own voice) they would come out totally different. As an artist, would I really want something someone else made in the materials that I covet and want to interpret in my own language? Maybe not indefinitely, but I’d still love to look at them for many many hours, and then I could sell only one of them to pay off student loans.
I called the gallery today, again: they are still available. These sculptures, both named “The Communicator”, are just so incredibly amazing to me. I assume the name “communicator” comes from the type of crystal points she used. The specific points are called communicators because of how the points terminate, which some people believe enables communication with the “etheric” - spirits and angels, etc. My motives for wanting to have these for myself are egoic. Since I want to use the very same materials (body, wax, quarts crystal) they seem a reflection of how I might want to see myself in my work. On some level my ego thinks that if I own it or copy it, I will be imbued with their beauty, or perhaps their beauty will be imbued with a little of my energy. It’s the same reason we buy anything, isn’t it? I like that they exist as companion pieces and that they oppose and complement (In my mind they are in communication with each other in a manner similar to Rauschenberg’s Factum I and II) each other while being individual sculptures. I suppose if I were going to forge one I would feel compelled to forge the other. I have no idea how I would infiltrate Sean Kelly gallery, but I could start by bribing someone who works there to leave the back door open at night…
Someone pointed out to me that if I tried to make them (interpret them in my own voice) they would come out totally different. As an artist, would I really want something someone else made in the materials that I covet and want to interpret in my own language? Maybe not indefinitely, but I’d still love to look at them for many many hours, and then I could sell only one of them to pay off student loans.
To answer the question about whether or not the aura is diminished in a forgery, I think it changes, but is not vanished. If no one knows that it is a forgery I think it still has value if it is exactly the same to the mind of the observer and the observer(s) agree upon what that value is. If we enter time into the equation it might seem more difficult to equate similar value for something that was made last year if the viewer thinks it is centuries old, but again the importance and impact of this boils down to perception of the viewer.
My desire to forge/steal the sculpture also stems from my love of Marina’s work. I didn’t really know her until I saw her at “The Artist is Present” at MoMA and I was totally blown away that she had the mental capacity to sit like that for hours, no - weeks on end! As someone who “tries” to meditate, I know all too well how challenging it to confront the mind on such a basic (yet deep) level. The act of being still to me is a metaphor for remaining unchanged in the face the most intense emotional/physical turmoil. Her act of defiant stillness to me is the ultimate spiritual ninja boot camp, and especially that it occurred outside of any so-called “spiritual” context. By sitting still she said, I control my mind and my body, they don’t control me – (me being the one who existed before those two things were born). So to show up at the Armory and have an artist that I admire so much create a work with materials that I covet made me intensely jealous. It was also an affirmation for me to have license to make whatever I want with no excuses. I’m reminded time and again that materials don’t matter nearly as much as execution.
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