Day 6. Presence

via Getty Images (Andrew H. Walker)

In 1974, in response to the criticism that performance art was aggressive and sensationalistic, Marina Abramović performed a piece called Rhythm 0, where she stood in a room beside a table laden with various objects—a rose, a whip, a feather, a gun and a bullet—and let the audience do as it wanted. The audience began gently, then grew increasingly brutal in the face of her passivity. Over six hours, they behaved so badly that when the show was over, when she stood up with tears in her eyes, the entire group fled in shame. It was as if they’d lost sight of her humanity—and theirs as well.