The Museum of Modern Love centers around Marina Abramović’s real-life performance art piece “The Artist is Present” (2009). In 2009, Abramović spent more than 700 hours sitting across a table from strangers, one at a time, at the Museum of Modern Art. She sat for three months and truly looked at each person across from her. And vice versa. For many it was a profound experience. Yet it was a public thing – museum guests could file in and watch these intimate moments.
To me, that’s what Heather Rose’s The Museum of Modern Love is all about – how you choose to live your life. Are you engaged and available to the person in front of you, or are you a spectator?
While Abramović is in the book, she is not a central character. Rather, “The Artist is Present” is the jumping off point for key moments in several fictional characters’ lives. A Southern woman, recently widowed, visits New York City and becomes enchanted by the exhibit, returning day after day and making some friends amongst the regulars. A middling composer, once an active participant in the New York art scene, skulks amongst the spectators in a kind of emotional exile after become estranged from his family. Young students try to make sense of what art is, and what it means to live a life devoted to it.
I tend to be a genre fiction guy, but this piece of literary fiction absolutely gripped me from beginning to the end. In fact, I had to pull over while driving and think about the ending a couple of times. It’s one of those books that encourages you to put yourself out into the world and take chances on things you care about.
If you’re interested in creativity and living deeply, give this one a read. It’s spiritual food.