The Museum of Modern Love
Read The Museum of Modern Love Online
Authors: Heather Rose
The Museum of Modern Love
is Heather Rose's seventh novel. Her novels span adult literary fiction, children's literature, fantasy/sci-fi and crime. Heather's previous novels are
White Heart
(1999),
The Butterfly Man
(2005) and
The River Wife
(2009). Heather also writes the acclaimed Tuesday McGillycuddy series for children (written under the pen-name of Angelica Banks with fellow author Danielle Wood and published internationally). The series is
Finding Serendipity
(2013),
A Week Without Tuesday
(2015) and
Blueberry Pancakes Forever
(2016). Heather won the Davitt Award in 2006 and her work has been shortlisted for the Nita B Kibble Award and the Aurealis Awards, and longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award. She is also a recipient of the international Eleanor Dark Fellowship. Heather was the inaugural Writer in Residence at The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart 2012â13.
Published by Allen & Unwin in 2016
Copyright © Heather Rose 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian
Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Lyrics from Leonard Cohen's âLast Year's Man' reproduced with permission from Music Sales UK.
Lyrics from Antony and the Johnsons' âHope There's Someone' reproduced with permission from Mushroom Music.
Allen & Unwin
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Phone:
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Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia
ISBN 9781760291860
eISBN 9781952534799
Set by Bookhouse, Sydney
Text design by Sandy Cull, gogoGingko
Cover design by Sandy Cull, gogoGingko
For David &
for Marina
&
all people of art
CONTENTS
THIS BOOK IS A STRANGE
hybrid of fact and fiction. All of the characters are completely fictional with several notable exceptions.
Ms Marina AbramoviÄ gave me permission to include her as herself. I have drawn extensively from interviews and performances given in the years leading up to her 2010 performance at MoMA. This does not mean that the thoughts I have attributed to the character of Marina AbramoviÄ at any time in this book are a true reflection of any event in history, nor how the real Marina AbramoviÄ thinks or feels. That is the risk the novelist takes, bringing to life what we can only imagine. In allowing me complete creative freedom, Ms AbramoviÄ again demonstrated her unremitting courage.
Also, with permission, the photographer Marco Anelli appears as himself as does Ms AbramoviÄ's assistant, Davide Balliano. Any thoughts or acts attributed to either of these people are completely fictional. Also referenced is Klaus Biesenbach, the curator of
The Artist is Present
and Director of MoMA.
The character Carlos is based on Paco Blancas who sat with Marina twenty-one times.
I am indebted to James Westcott for his biography
The Life and Death of Marina AbramoviÄ
. Also to Chrissy Isles, Klaus
Biesenbach, Sean Kelly and other curators, art historians and commentators who have contributed to the review and analysis of Ms AbramoviÄ's work.
The event that was
The Artist is Present and Retrospective
at MoMA took place from 9 March to 31 May 2010. Fifteen hundred and fifty-four people sat with Ms AbramoviÄ over 736 hours, and more than 850,000 people observed from the sidelines. Marco Anelli's book:
Portraits in the Presence of Marina AbramoviÄ
is a complete record of all those who sat.
This novel is in part a gift to them all.
Further reading:
MOMA,
Marina AbramoviÄ: The Artist is Present
Marco Anelli,
Portraits in the Presence of Marina
Thomas McEvilley,
Art, Love, Friendship: Marina AbramoviÄ and Ulay Together & Apart
James Westcott,
When Marina AbramoviÄ Dies
Marina Abramovic,
The Bibliography
Stiles, Biesenbach, Iles,
Marina Abra AbramoviÄ Movic
THERE ARE SEVEN STEPS IN EVERY PROJECT:
1.
AWARENESS
2.
RESISTANCE
3.
SUBMISSION
4.
WORK
5.
REFLECTION
6.
COURAGE
7.
THE GIFT
MARINA ABRAMOVIÄ
HE WAS NOT MY FIRST
musician, Arky Levin. Nor my least successful. Mostly by his age potential is squandered or realised. But this is not a story of potential. It is a story of convergence. Such things are rarer than you might think. Coincidence, I've heard, is God's way of being discreet. But convergence is more than that. It is something that, once set in motion, will have an unknown effect. It is a human condition to admire hindsight. I always thought foresight was so much more useful.
It is the spring of the year 2010 and one of my artists is busy in a gallery in New York City. Not the great Metropolitan, nor the Guggenheim, serene and twisted though she is. No, my artist's gallery is a white box. It's evident that within that box much is alive. And vibrating. But before we get to that, let me set the scene.
There is a river on either side of this great city and the sun rises over one and sets over the other. Where oak, hemlock and fir once stood besides lakes and streams, avenues now run northâsouth. Cross streets mostly run eastâwest. The mountains have been levelled, the lakes have been filled. The buildings create the most familiar skyscape of the modern world.
The pavements convey people and dogs, the subway rumbles and the yellow cabs honk day and night. As in previous decades, people are coming to terms with the folly of their investments and the ineptitude of their government. Wages are low, as are the waistbands of jeans. Thin is fashionable but fat is normal. Living is expensive, and being ill is the most costly business of all. There is a feeling that a chaos of climate, currency, creed and cohabitation is looming in the world. On an individual basis, most people still want to look good and smell nice, have friends, be comfortable, make money, feel love, enjoy sex and not die before their time.