I read the first half of 'The Museum of Modern Love' with deep-seated skepticism. My friend Dan recommended the book in the Hobart Bookshop. I was looking to learn more about his hometown. The author Heather Rose also grew up off the mainland. So you can understand that I was very cross to read and find myself in MoMA in New York instead of wildness in Trowunna or so-called Van Diemen's Land or so-called Tasmania.
I scoffed, thinking it was cheap to write a story around a piece of seminal art. I use "around" in the literal sense. Rose's characters physically orbit Marina Abramović's performance piece 'The Artist is Present' (2010). I wouldn't have known the artwork's name but I had seen the clips. "You Were Not Just Another Visitor, You Were My Life". I daydream about seeing Tom in a crowded city and saying the words.
Marina performed 'The Artist is Present' late in her career. She sits at a wooden table with an empty chair. Spectators are encouraged to sit across from her and meet her eyes in silence. Rose's characters interpret the piece in real time, situating the book in New York in 2010. This bothered me as the time and place of 'The Artist is Present' is not at all relevant to its allure. I recognise some art is moving in light of its context. The Great Gatsby a window into shiny pre-depression America read at a time of economic and cultural turmoil. Waiting for Godot questioning where the Mighty Saviour was after another World War. To stare into another's eyes however, could be moving in the first decade of the new millennia or at genesis. The use of the performance to situate characters in a book seemed insulting to its immortality. I thought credit to the book was just credit to Abramović.
And then, I realised I had mapped terrains still unknown. I had finished pages before reaching them. Yes, the book was in New York in 2010 (and not Tasmania...) but like Abramović this was just circumstance. The stillness of 'The Artist is Present' was not stagnation but catalyst. Like the first stone that attracted all those after to create the universe the woman across from the empty chair offered a basis for all characters. Whether they sat or not, all wanted to be seen. And to be seen, said Rose, is to be Loved.
"The Museum of Modern Love" is about human desire for full transparency. That is Love in the simplest, most concentrated form. There is no room for a Love re-imagined for one's career or music or friends. Love is the bounding of your hair with your partner in the public realm. It's existence as a single entity. The kind of intimacy only afforded with proximity and time, with surrender and sacrifice.
I have been skeptical of romantic love for some time now. I couldn't find reason to give up what I had created to make room for someone else. I had a half-life once, then I made it a life for one. I had to find meaning in the absence so I called it freedom and dedicated my heart to other things all more important, all more reasonable.
The truth is, I left someone behind in Queensland. In the clouds in the Winter sky I think about how he smiles with his eyes. I think about his hands and his hard work. I think about how much I felt I was playing pretend, how calculated I was to only give away just enough to string it along. And then feeling isolated when I was misunderstood.
Maybe he would see me if I met his eyes. If I added another seat to the wooden table.
But I ran away and I know I will lose him. Neither of us were willing to look up for long enough. 'The Artist is Present' asked participants to be vulnerable and asked Marina to break herself in the process. Love is to be seen, Love is to sacrifice, Love is to surrender. I did not have enough weight to sustain him holding the arrow, nor I the bow. But I know I miss him. Not just another pair of arms. I think I would see him in Marina's brown eyes. Realise the closedness of my open heart. I desire to love now. A month ago I did not. I want to fly to another state and do other stupid things.
Instead I will wash my face and wipe the dishes and take up the room in a bed for two.
