Ali’s Team Pick:
Tilda Swinton. Maybe you’ve heard of her? Vogue cover girl, David Bowie music video star, Academy Award winner and Golden Globe nominee. An androgynous heart-throb we wish was playing for our team. She’s also a performance artist and this year she will be sleeping in a box in the MoMA on random days at random times.
Tilda Swinton first performed “The Maybe” in 1995 at the Serpentine Gallery in London with artist Cornelia Parker, and went on to perform it solo in Rome and Paris. Now it’s in New York City, but we never know when – the museum staff don’t even know when, according to the Gothamist: “Museum staff doesn’t know she’s coming until the day of, but she’s here today [yesterday]. She’ll be there the whole day. All that’s in the box is cushions and a water jug.”
We just know that at 6 random times throughout this year, Tilda Swinton will be sleeping in a glass box for eight hours with nothing but her glasses and a water jug in there for company. She will sleep for the entire 8 hours that the museum is open each performance, which makes my bladder cringe in sympathy.
I am full of a lot of whimsy, and I think doing this performance piece with a un-posted schedule makes it so special. Art mirrors life, and experiences cannot always be iCal-ed. It makes the viewer pause and be present in the unplanned. And it makes the shared experience of stumbling onto this Sleeping Beauty that much more unique – you, along with whatever visitors happened to be there that day, experienced this piece for which there was no planning and which will only happen six times. That’s community, what happens there. Accidental community. I hope we all stumble upon Sleeping Beauty together.
P.S… how much do we all want her outfit right now?
