Status
Available
Genres
Publication
Chapel Hill, North Carolina : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2018.
Description
"Arky Levin has reached a creative dead end. Guilty and restless after an unexpected separation from his wife, almost by chance he stumbles upon an art exhibit that will change his life. Based on a real piece of performance art, the installation that the fictional Arky Levin discovers is inexplicably powerful. Visitors to the Museum of Modern Art sit across a table from artist Marina Abramovi for as short or long a period of time as they choose. Although some go in skeptical, almost all leave moved. And the participants are not the only ones to find themselves changed by this unusual experience: Arky finds himself returning daily to watch others with Abramovi. As the performance unfolds over the course of 75 days, so too does Arky. As he bonds with other people drawn to the exhibit, he slowly starts to understand what might be missing in his life and what he must do"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member tandah
While this story spun around Marina Abramovic's installation at MOMA and its architecture was Abramovic's 'Seven Steps in Every Project' - think Arky Levin's journey was the centrepiece.
I liked this book, a lot! I liked some new insights into art and music. I liked the wisdom of Jane and Hal. I
*** NEXT LINE MAY BE A SPOILER ***
I especially appreciated the Marina/Olay and Lydia/Arky contrast - Marina and Lydia could both see 'the greater person he might be' - but whereas Olay's response was 'you can't love me for something I might become', Arky stepped up to meet Lydia's expectations.
I'll be reading 'The Museum of Modern Love' again (and possibly again).
I liked this book, a lot! I liked some new insights into art and music. I liked the wisdom of Jane and Hal. I
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admired Lydia's talent and braveness. I liked witnessing Arky's growing self-awareness. I liked reading about Arky & Lydia's beautiful home. I liked the vulnerability and honesty of Sally. I loved that all these people could look into Abramovic's eyes, and see their soul.*** NEXT LINE MAY BE A SPOILER ***
I especially appreciated the Marina/Olay and Lydia/Arky contrast - Marina and Lydia could both see 'the greater person he might be' - but whereas Olay's response was 'you can't love me for something I might become', Arky stepped up to meet Lydia's expectations.
I'll be reading 'The Museum of Modern Love' again (and possibly again).
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LibraryThing member oldblack
I found this book to be about 70% good, about 30% pretentious. As the book went on the aspects that I perceived as pretentious tended to dominate, so in the end I was left with a feeling of disappointment. But I know nothing about art and perhaps even less about the existential questions supposedly
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being addressed by the performance artist Marina Abramović. The novel really went well beyond my comprehension. What can you make of this: "It was easy to gain strength from chaos because it had about it the abyss - always so tantalising-as the heroin addicts knew." WTF?! I did like the story of the people's reaction to her art, their relationships, and the experiences of participating in such an event. I liked the New York setting and the light shed on that environment . And I was also somewhat bemused by Allen & Unwin's back cover blurb: "Arky Swann is a film composer...". But inside the book the character's name is Arky Levin. In fact, one review I read stated that there was a deliberate significance in the name Levin - a reference to Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. I'm guessing that the American edition had his name changed but Allen & Unwin were too careless to bother matching the blurb with the text. And why would they change his name - to make him seem less Jewish?? If I were Heather Rose I wouldn't pick that publisher again, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers. Show Less
LibraryThing member ClareRhoden
Great book - though there are challenges here. This book is full of wisdom and contemplation, but doesn't get bogged down in either. There's a neat foreground plot, but of course the star of the show is the amazing artist Marina Abramovic. The story is set around Abramovic's performance art, The
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Artist is Present. I learned a lot and thought a lot and loved every minute. Show Less
LibraryThing member pamelad
As it says on the cover, this is "a novel inspired by Marina Abramovic". It won the 2017 Stella Prize, which was awarded to the best work of literature published in 2016, written by an Australian woman, .
Marina Abramovic is a Serbian performance artist. In 2010, at the MOMA, she performed The
The central character, other than Abramovic, is Levin, a musician who writes film scores. His wife, a famous architect, is in a semi-coma. Before she became incapacitated she legally banned Levin from visiting her (sounds like BS!). Levin spends every day in the gallery, and this participation changes his life.
I would like to say some positive, or at least thoughtful, things about this book, even though I thought it was utter twaddle. My biggest problem is that Rose has inserted herself into the mind of Abramovic, who is a real person whose life is nothing like Rose's. The only thoughts Rose can put into Abramovic's mind are Rose's own; she imagines what she would think if she were Abramovic. So to me, this book is inauthentic. It has borrowed its significance from the life of Abramovic, and has none of its own. Levin, another artist, also strikes me as a fake, a straw man constructed to embody the self-absorption of the artist and to undergo the transformation essential to the plot.
Rose's writing did not appeal. In the following example, the omniscient narrator makes an appearance:
I have stood beside artists a very long time. I was there at the rape trial of Artemisia Gentileschi. I was there as she drove the painted blade through the neck of Holofernes. I stood beside her as she wrote "I shall show you what woman is capable of. You will find Caesar's courage in the soul of a woman." Imagine that, five hundred years ago!
The good thing about the book is that it introduced Abramovic and her art. I read about Abramovic's life and her work and really stopped to think about what she had done. She pushes her body to its limits, and some of her performances have put her life at risk. The extremes she goes to shocked me. I think it's presumptuous of Rose to interpret Abramovic, and that the connections Rose makes between Abramovic's performances and her Serbian upbringing are banal.
I don't think this is a good book, but I do think it's worth the read.
Marina Abramovic is a Serbian performance artist. In 2010, at the MOMA, she performed The
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Artist is Present, where 6 days a week she sat at a table and gazed into the eyes of the person opposite. Towards the end of the seventy-five days of Abramovic's performance, people were queueing overnight for the privilege of sitting opposite Abramovic. The performance space was surrounded by a gallery, where people watched the sitters below. Some of the watchers in the gallery returned day after day to watch what had become for them a mystical, life-changing experience.The central character, other than Abramovic, is Levin, a musician who writes film scores. His wife, a famous architect, is in a semi-coma. Before she became incapacitated she legally banned Levin from visiting her (sounds like BS!). Levin spends every day in the gallery, and this participation changes his life.
I would like to say some positive, or at least thoughtful, things about this book, even though I thought it was utter twaddle. My biggest problem is that Rose has inserted herself into the mind of Abramovic, who is a real person whose life is nothing like Rose's. The only thoughts Rose can put into Abramovic's mind are Rose's own; she imagines what she would think if she were Abramovic. So to me, this book is inauthentic. It has borrowed its significance from the life of Abramovic, and has none of its own. Levin, another artist, also strikes me as a fake, a straw man constructed to embody the self-absorption of the artist and to undergo the transformation essential to the plot.
Rose's writing did not appeal. In the following example, the omniscient narrator makes an appearance:
I have stood beside artists a very long time. I was there at the rape trial of Artemisia Gentileschi. I was there as she drove the painted blade through the neck of Holofernes. I stood beside her as she wrote "I shall show you what woman is capable of. You will find Caesar's courage in the soul of a woman." Imagine that, five hundred years ago!
The good thing about the book is that it introduced Abramovic and her art. I read about Abramovic's life and her work and really stopped to think about what she had done. She pushes her body to its limits, and some of her performances have put her life at risk. The extremes she goes to shocked me. I think it's presumptuous of Rose to interpret Abramovic, and that the connections Rose makes between Abramovic's performances and her Serbian upbringing are banal.
I don't think this is a good book, but I do think it's worth the read.
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LibraryThing member devilish2
An interesting look at Marina Abramovic, the definition of art, and the meaning art has in people's lives. A composer, Arky, his wife Lydia, Jane, a woman from the south, Brittika from Amsterdam, Healayas, a French/African art critic, all relate to Marina's work 'The Artist is Present' in different
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ways. I was particularly moved by Rose's chapter 42 that renders the impressions of someone who's had a stroke, a stunning passage. Show Less
LibraryThing member HandelmanLibraryTINR
"Arky Levin has reached a creative dead end. Guilty and restless after an unexpected separation from his wife, almost by chance he stumbles upon an art exhibit that will change his life. Based on a real piece of performance art, the installation that the fictional Arky Levin discovers is
Show More
inexplicably powerful. Visitors to the Museum of Modern Art sit across a table from artist Marina Abramović for as short or long a period of time as they choose. Although some go in skeptical, almost all leave moved. And the participants are not the only ones to find themselves changed by this unusual experience: Arky finds himself returning daily to watch others with Abramović. As the performance unfolds over the course of 75 days, so too does Arky. As he bonds with other people drawn to the exhibit, he slowly starts to understand what might be missing in his life and what he must do"-- Show Less
LibraryThing member mykl-s
Well written, with multiple connected storylines, revolving around the real-life 2010 performance work by Marina Abramović, which happened daily for 75 days during open hours at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Abramović simply sat at a table and invited anyone to sit across from her,
The novel includes Abramović and several other fictionalized real people in her circle. It also tells the stories of a fictional movie conductor, his wife who has suffered a stroke and other medical problems, his associates, and people he meets at the performance space when he becomes fascinated by the sittings.
Over 1500 people sat with Marina, and more than 800,000 came to watch, some of them returning many times.
Heather Rose writes lyrically about the deep connections between people, about private thoughts, and about what silence means in today's world. She shows what kind of artist Abramović has been, how her career has changed what art is like, and how, now in her 70s, she is able to do a show like this. This is the kind of book to savor, and to return to.
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silently, with eye contact, for as long as the person wanted or was able to. The novel includes Abramović and several other fictionalized real people in her circle. It also tells the stories of a fictional movie conductor, his wife who has suffered a stroke and other medical problems, his associates, and people he meets at the performance space when he becomes fascinated by the sittings.
Over 1500 people sat with Marina, and more than 800,000 came to watch, some of them returning many times.
Heather Rose writes lyrically about the deep connections between people, about private thoughts, and about what silence means in today's world. She shows what kind of artist Abramović has been, how her career has changed what art is like, and how, now in her 70s, she is able to do a show like this. This is the kind of book to savor, and to return to.
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LibraryThing member Narshkite
Well, you are never going to lose with me if you keep quoting Leonard Cohen, but that is not the only really good thing about this book. This is indeed very good, and entirely different from anything I have ever read. This is about what art can do -- about how it impacts people, about its power to
I need to reflect a bit more -- I just finished over lunch and wanted to memorialize my immediate feelings -- The one thing I know is that it made me see art differently. I was at the Met two days ago and there was a very good abstract expressionist exhibit. I have very mixed feelings about this school. It includes artists I look to as among the best in the Western canon (Pollack is just the best, he might be dead, but I have shared more sensation with him than most any other person) and others in whose work I find no value at all (I am looking at you Barnett Newman.) As I sat in a room filled with an array of Mark Rothko's work from 1960 to his suicide I understood the feeling he was trying to convey, and I loved those canvases in a way I had not in the 100's of other times I have spent time with his work. This book gets most of the credit for this.
This is also a story about the ways in which we walk through grief, particularly about how we grieve the end of happy contented relationships (when was the last time I read a book with couples together over 20 years who loved each other?) and complicated unmanageable relationships, about the expectations of others, and about how we can rise to occasions.
** The narrator of the audio book, Laurel Lefkow, was fantastic.
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sustain and unite people, to heal and to destroy, to change the way we see the world, the ways in which it demands and celebrates endurance, the platform it gives the artist to scoop out their insides to share them with others and its power to scoop out the insides of those who engage with your art. It is also about what art costs the artist and the serious observer. The short answer -- a lot.I need to reflect a bit more -- I just finished over lunch and wanted to memorialize my immediate feelings -- The one thing I know is that it made me see art differently. I was at the Met two days ago and there was a very good abstract expressionist exhibit. I have very mixed feelings about this school. It includes artists I look to as among the best in the Western canon (Pollack is just the best, he might be dead, but I have shared more sensation with him than most any other person) and others in whose work I find no value at all (I am looking at you Barnett Newman.) As I sat in a room filled with an array of Mark Rothko's work from 1960 to his suicide I understood the feeling he was trying to convey, and I loved those canvases in a way I had not in the 100's of other times I have spent time with his work. This book gets most of the credit for this.
This is also a story about the ways in which we walk through grief, particularly about how we grieve the end of happy contented relationships (when was the last time I read a book with couples together over 20 years who loved each other?) and complicated unmanageable relationships, about the expectations of others, and about how we can rise to occasions.
** The narrator of the audio book, Laurel Lefkow, was fantastic.
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LibraryThing member AngelaJMaher
This wasn't what I expected, but then again, what did I expect? An exploration of art, identity and relationships, it's immersive and (often) gently thought provoking. Sometimes confronting. Very real, but empathetic with it. The flaws and mistakes of the characters are laid bare, but without
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judgement. Beautifully written. Show Less
LibraryThing member CarrieWuj
My favorite book of the year so far! This story centers on a real event: the installation at the MOMA in 2010 "The Artist is Present" by Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic. Right there, something learned! Abramovic is controversial to put it lightly, often using her body as her canvas, but
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this particular work featured her sitting for 7 hours a day at a table where the public was invited to individually sit in a chair directly across from her and simply look in her eyes. The author does an amazing job of recounting this 3-month event - the publicity it created, the emotion it inspired, and she does an even better job of creating fictional characters and a story around it. Arky Levin is a songwriter - famous for movie scores, but slightly needy in his working conditions and in a bit of a slump. "To write music, he must hurdle over a morass of broken dreams. Every time he goes to leap, he comes up short." His wife, Lydia Fiorentio is a famous architect, but ill and struggling - that's part of Arky's slump. The omniscient, altruistic narrator (inspiration? creativity? a muse?) tells us this story will be a convergence - and it is - of the various people who come to see and sit with Abramovic. Arky meets Jane, a middle school art teacher and recent widow from Georgia, conspicuous in her southern, touristy clothes. She has come to NYC to fulfill a desire and to grapple with grief and regret after her husband's death. Also there is Brittika, a Chinese grad student from the Netherlands, and Healyas, an art critic for NPR, and friend of Lydia and Arky. We also get insider info from the installation's photographer, from Danica, Marina's dead mother, and from Marina herself. This all sorts like a kaleidoscope into a beautiful and unconventional look at art and love and sacrifice and humanity. Every other page has some gorgeous insight and the characters are achingly real in their thoughts, feelings, insecurities and foibles. Somehow Abramovic's "art" transforms them all. Some gems show the scope of writing and observation here: "She [Jane] was somewhere between everyday routine and ceremony. A ceremony for the letting-go of life....mourning had its own intense, pungent intimacy." (18) "Art is really a sort of sport. To master the leap is essential....the starting point my be different for each, but the goal is the same. Do something worthwhile before you die. Every idea is invisible until it isn't. Love is invisible, yet we can see it. Attraction is the same. Inspiration is invisible, though it sings and dances through every day." (38) "Love accounted for so many things. A series of biological and chemical interactions. A bout of responsibility. An invisible wave of normality that had been romanticized and and externalized. A form of required connection to ensure procreation. A strategic response to prevent loneliness and maintain social structures." (47). This book begs to be discussed - questions like "what is art?" "who decides?" "how does love manifest itself?" "who decides?" and the sheer beauty of the words and the story will leave a lasting impression - just like a work of art. Show Less
LibraryThing member jody12
Some books are very good at surprising even the most seasoned of us bookclubers. Museum of Modern Love’s blend of fact and fiction is a great example of how a novel can inspire and educate its readers on a subject that was not even on their radar! This is what happened to many of us.
Everyone
The fictional characters mixed with the actual Artist is Present exhibition in 2010 made for an interesting study on both art and those drawn to it. As readers we all had our favourites. Arky and Lydia with their complicated relationship found some empathy with us. Jane we found both sweet and relatable and the ever changing kaleidoscope of other patrons keeps the story new and appealing.
We had a wonderful discussion on what constitutes art and people’s reaction to it. There is no doubt this story is on the more obscure and ambiguous of the form, which makes this story all the more intriguing. We discovered there is a documentary on Marina and also footage of the Artist is Present sittings, that will most certainly be followed up by most of our members.
Everyone
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agreed that performance art is a fascinating, yet confusing concept and the story of Marina Abramovic is without a doubt one of the most intriguing. We were all draw to discover more about her and performance art in general. The fictional characters mixed with the actual Artist is Present exhibition in 2010 made for an interesting study on both art and those drawn to it. As readers we all had our favourites. Arky and Lydia with their complicated relationship found some empathy with us. Jane we found both sweet and relatable and the ever changing kaleidoscope of other patrons keeps the story new and appealing.
We had a wonderful discussion on what constitutes art and people’s reaction to it. There is no doubt this story is on the more obscure and ambiguous of the form, which makes this story all the more intriguing. We discovered there is a documentary on Marina and also footage of the Artist is Present sittings, that will most certainly be followed up by most of our members.
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LibraryThing member RmCox38111
I enjoyed listening to The Museum of Modern Love. Heather Rose wrote a book that is part art history and part meditation on grief. The story focuses on Arky Levin and his relationships as they develop and come alive in new ways. Arky is a self-absorbed composer of film scores whose wife is a
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world-famous architect. When she falls ill and pushes Arky away he begins to experience a new sense of the meaning of love. Arky's story happens during the installation of real-life performance artist Marina Abramovic's The Artist Is Present. In this art work, Abramovic sits at a table and locks eyes with everyone who sits with her--for 75 days. Rose describes a fictionalized account of those who observed and interacted with the installation, focusing on how presence can change lives. I was fascinated by the power of presence and how it created reflective moments for everyone. It is my professional experience that people want to be seen and that being seen invites honesty. The emotional honesty portrayed as Arky found his way connected with me both professionally and personally. Show Less
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2018)
New South Wales Premier's Literary Award (Winner — 2017)
Queensland Literary Awards (Finalist — Fiction — 2017)
Tasmanian Literary Awards (Winner — 2017)
ALS Gold Medal (Shortlist — Shortlist — 2017)
Stella Prize (Winner — 2017)
ISBN
9781616208523
Local notes
fiction