A beautiful meditation on art, life, and risk.

This book slowly won me over. As an artist, I deeply appreciated the intuition and love that illuminated this book. I was also moved to hear that the author battles with considerable pain from arthritis. These are not facile insights. If you, in turn, love the life of art and art of life, I believe you may love this book the way I do.

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was hoping for a happier ending

I first thought this book was about the archy character but it seems to be that it was more about the artist. I was hoping for a happier ending but over all I liked it

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Encourages thought about 'what is art'

From the title, I would not have selected this audible. After reading the description and some of the reviews, I selected this audible book, and am glad I did. I read about the MoMA exhibit 'The Artist is Present', yet did not give much thought to it, other than to read a bit about the artist. This book is both about the observer and the artist. Philosophical questions from both sides emerge. As the reader/listener is another outside observer, this gives yet another vantage to posed life questions. All in all, listening to the audible was well-spent thought provoking time.

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Simply Lovely

I experienced this novel as an unexpected combination of the and the complex. The result was lovely and painful; heartwarming and heartbreaking. The stories of each character combined to produce a tale as shimmering as the play of light on water. Simply lovely.

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The Art of Presence

In college, I spent a lot of time trying to think about Frank O’Hara’s poem, “Why I Am Not a Painter.” Part of that was because my father and O’Hara split the major Hopwood Awards at the University of Michigan in 1950 – Dad won for prose and O’Hara for poetry – so that difference in genre seemed personal. And part of it was for the poem itself: what might it mean to go after a similar artistic statement in paint rather than words.

This novel explores a real-life conceptual artist’s work. Marina Abramovic sat at a table in a New York gallery for 75 days, and hundreds of people sat across from her briefly to meet her gaze. She was “present” to strangers, and it was an event that resonated. I was surprised to hear that even my children had heard of it.

It was also, it seems, powerful for the thousands who witnessed it, and Heather Rose has set out here to transform some of that experience from the performance genre to the novel.

As a result, this is both an effort to reclaim Abramovic’s original experiment – what does it feel like to be present for anyone who comes before you? – and an experiment in genre. It’s a little bit of what O’Hara was doing in trying to bring a painting into his poem.

I love that ambition, and I love that this novel works as well as it does to make Abramovic’s work resonate. I don’t know whether I’d have been moved by the actual experience of it, but I do know that I appreciate having it brought to me through multiple perspectives – including Abramovic’s own (thought much of that, I gather, is fictionalized from her biography).

Conceptually, then, this is more than worth it.

As a novel itself, though, it has its ups and downs. Our main protagonist is a composer of movie soundtracks. And, as such, he is himself invested in the work of transforming the images of cinema art into musical art.

Arky Levin is carrying a deep sadness. His best friend and closest collaborator has died in a recent car accident, and his wife is slowly dying from a wasting neurological disease. What’s more, because she remembers how devastated her father was when her mother died in similar fashion, she has fashioned a legal care document that denies him access to her. She’s left him all the money and resources he needs to continue his art, but he’s not allowed to come see her.

I get why that situation has emotional power here – and I get that it sets up an emotionally effective conclusion when [SPOILER:] Levin finally insists on visiting his nearly unconscious wife and being fully present for her as Abramovic has been for him – but I can’t escape the deeply contrived nature of it. The genuine power that Rose gives this is diminished by the clear artificiality of the barriers she’s thrown up for Levin.

There are a range of other characters too, most prominently a gentle woman from the South who’s lost her husband to cancer and sought distraction in New York. I love the way she and Levin bond over watching Abramovic watch others, and I love the way Rose conjures a sense of community among those who have been moved by the experience.

That said, though, I think the second half of this begins to run a little out of steam. The intense focus of the beginning, when Levin and his new friend forge a connection of mourners who can’t quite name their pain, gives way to other sub-plots that deal more with the world of art, its making, and its marketing. The characters that emerge there are ones, as I see it, who are less affected by the experience of the art than by the work of creating it. All that still works, but without quite the same beautiful edge of the opening chapters.

In any case, this is certainly a strong and moving work. It’s a reminder of how hard it is to open yourself to another’s pain, and that’s worth exploring in every medium we have.

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7 people found this helpful

Loved it!

The author drew me in immediately and the story spoke to me. I will probably listen to this again in the future. Excellent narration.

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Art and fiction, working it out

This book is a marvel—a twining of several love stories with the work of artist Marina Abramovic, who was “Present” in the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC for 75 days in 2010. Obviously this book isn’t for everyone, but you don’t have to be interested in Abramovic or performance art as a discipline to appreciate the beautiful writing and narrative. I knew nothing about Abramovic going in and quite a lot coming out, and I like what I learned. The author placed several characters in proximity to the extraordinary exhibition, and showed how it transformed them. That’s all the plot description I feel equal to right now. You don’t need more. If you love excellent fiction, you’ll love this. It will make you feel alert and in love with the world!

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A grown up book for grown up people.

Thought you would know yourself by 50? Guess what...age doesnt provide the answers, just better articulated questions. Read this novel and let author Heather Rose, help. The insights and reflections will hit home. Whatever your age, we all need love.

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4 people found this helpful

Deep literary dive into a major performance artist

If this book were a painting it would be an enormous abstract with a multitude of separate pieces held together by a unifying color. The color would be blue. There is a lot of deep sadness in this book. A lot of grief. Yet because it’s written in a detached style, it’s not necessarily depressing.

The writing goes from brutal to lyrical.

As much as I appreciated the literary quality, and it definitely feels like literature, the brutality of some of the performance pieces as well as historical references of war, coupled with the lack of connection I felt with any of the characters, led me to feel as detached about the book as the writer seemed to feel about it herself.

The protagonist, a composer named Arky Levin, is wracked with deep confusion. This inner cacophony is counterpointed with the incredible grounded stability of the artist who sits all day looking at various people who come to sit across from her.

I gave it four stars because it’s worthwhile, highly intelligent and studded with myriad historial, musical, film, literary and art related references all of which make it interesting, even compelling at times, but I would never say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was enriching, if a bit of a slog sometimes.

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Love life art

I had no idea what I was getting into with this book! From the beginning I was charmed by the narrator, the observations, the characters. I just wanted to spend more time with them. Very like those in the crowds that gather to see the artist sit, present to each in turn, for 75 days. It’s quite a journey.

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