The three-minute clip posted on YouTube shows the pop star with Marina Abramović, a Serbian performance artist, sitting on chairs, clutching ice, wearing a pointy-eyed mask, holding a log, and well, doing a silly walk.
It’s all in aid of Abramović’s Kickstarter campaign to build a museum, or “Interdisciplinary performance and education centre,” to be modestly christened the Marina Abramovic Institute.
The video though shows Lady Gaga being instructed by Abramović in the, also modestly titled, Abramović Method, “a series of exercises designed to heighten participants’ awareness of their physical and mental experience in the present moment”.
Abramović’s proposed new museum will be “dedicated to the presentation and preservation of long durational work, including that of performance art, dance, theater [sic], film, music, opera, and other forms that may develop in the future”.
The prolific artist, who began her career in the 70s, says she underwent a revelation during her last performance work in 2010, during which she sat in a chair and looked into the eyes of 1500 members of the public.
“It was during this 736-hour performance that Marina became aware of the public’s immense desire to slow down and connect to themselves and to one another in a live setting,” her Kickstarter reads.
The MAI will be a platform for works of live art that last over six hours, whilst providing a library of “time-based and immaterial works”.
Abramović is looking to raise $600,000, although she has been criticised from some quarters who have suggested that she personally could fund the museum give her wealth.
