“Marina Abramović  The Artist Is Present,” new documentary to play on HBO this month, includes extensive archival footage and images of her life in the year leading up to the MoMA extravaganza. Revisiting her controversial beginnings in the early 1970s, the film features documentation of her earlywork, including video of Abramović driving a van around a public square while shouting numbers from a megaphone, taking psychoactive drugs to challenge social attitudes towards female mental illness, and mutilating and flagellating herself.

The MoMA retrospective exhibit occupies several floors of the museum, most of them dedicated to earlier chapters in Abramović’s career, with images and videos of installations, many involving fellow performance artist and former romantic partner Ulay. She also trains 41 young artists to “re-perform” some of her early installations. For example, in “Imponderabilia,” two artists stand face-to-face, completely naked on opposite sides of a doorway, which others can only squeeze through by brushing against the couple’s naked flesh, a piece originally performed by Abramović and Ulay.

In the new exhibit, Abramović sits in a chair under bright spotlights opposite an empty chair, where members of the public can sit as long as they want, gazing into her eyes. A seemingly endless number of people line up for the opportunity to sit with her, many sitting multiple times on different days, several for as long as ten hours, some even after waiting all night. It is the longest-duration solo work of her career, and by far the most physically and emotionally demanding one she has ever attempted. When she conceived it, Abramović says she knew instantly it was the right piece, because the mere thought of it “made me nauseous.” Exceeding the museum’s and the artist’s own expectations, the exhibit becomes a blockbuster, must-see event.

One of the most emotional scenes occurs when Ulay, the man with whom she shared an intense and colorful history spanning more than 12 years, occupies the seatopposite Abramović. The two lived in a van in Europe and performed together before their relationship ended in suitably dramatic fashion: They walked from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China, met in the middle after covering over 1,500 miles apiece, and then said good-bye.

Sitting opposite each other in the MoMA exhibit, neither can hold back tears. Eventually, to cheers from the crowd, she reaches across and extends her hand to touch him, something none of the other sitters are permitted to do, and they hold each other. This moving moment highlights the two sides of Marina Abramović — the flesh-and-blood woman and the art-world icon — who is driven by passion, hungry for admiration and riven by contradictions.

“Marina Abramović The Artist Is Present” received the Panorama Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival. It will open at the Film Forum in New York City on June 13 and the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles on June 15, courtesy of HBO Documentary Films and Music Box Films.

Matthew Akers was the producer and a lead cinematographer on the series “Circus,” a producer and camera operator on the Emmy-winning series “Carrier,” and a producer and camera operator on the Peabody-winning series “Nimrod Nation.” His previous HBO credits as cinematographer include “Back in the Hood: Gang War II,” “Heir to an Execution” and “Elaine Stritch at Liberty.”

Image Courtesey of  Andrew Russeth

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Seductive, fearless and outrageous, Marina Abramović has been redefining the meaning of art for nearly 40 years. Using her own body as a vehicle, pushing herself beyond her limits, and at times risking her physical safety, she creates performances that challenge, shock and move.

From first-time director Matthew Akers, “Marina Abramović The Artist Is Present” follows “the grandmother of performance art” as she prepares for a major retrospective of her work at Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2010, highlighted by a new exhibit that is breathtaking in its simplicity: two chairs facing each other, with Abramović sitting in one and audience members taking turns sitting in the other, gazing into each other’s eyes in silence. In true Abramović style, she remains in the chair for seven and a half hours each day – every day the museum is open for three months – without eating, drinking or moving, a feat of mental and physical endurance that is challenging even for a veteran of such performances.

“Marina Abramović The Artist Is Present” debuts Monday, July 2 (9:00-10:45 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO, as part of the HBO Documentary Films summer series. The film had its world premiere at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Other HBO playdates: July 5 (12:45 a.m.), 10 (12:30 a.m.) and 18 (2:45 a.m.)

Other July films in the summer series include: “Hard Times: Lost on Long Island” (debuting July 9); “Birders: The Central Park Effect” (July 16); “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom” (July 16); “Vito” (July 23); and “About Face: Supermodels Then and Now” (July 30).

Known for her extreme performance-art installations, many involving nudity and punishing bodily deprivation, Marina Abramović is one of the few artists of her generation still active in the field. A glamorous art-world icon, a lightning rod for controversy and a myth of her own making, she’s tired of the “alternative” label after four decades of skepticism, and happy that the retrospective is the crowning achievement of her career, providing her the best opportunity to put performance art on the mainstream map. “Performance art has never been a regular form of art,” she says. “It’s always been alternative since I was born, so I want it to be a real form of art and respected before I die.”

In addition to Abramović herself, the film features interviews and scenes with collaborators, art commentators, friends and fans, including: art critic Arthur Danto; Chrissie Iles, curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Abramović’s gallerist, Sean Kelly; writer Tom McEvilley; illusionist David Blaine; and actor James Franco.

Image Courtesey of  Andy Miah

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HBO Documentary Films heats up the summer with thought-provoking new films on Monday nights, kicking off a new seven-week series Monday, June 18, exclusively on HBO.

From an unflinching study of America’s complex relationships with canines, to a mesmerizing portrait of preeminent performance artist Marina Abramović, to an inside look at the phenomenon of internet celebrity, to the lives of legendary supermodels, HBO documentaries take subscribers to worlds others rarely see.

This year’s summer series features the work of a wide range of directors, from veterans such as Marc Levin, Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders to exciting first-time filmmakers, including Matthew Akers, Chris Moukarbel and ValerieVeatch.

Upcoming documentaries include (in chronological order):

‘One Nation Under Dog: Stories of Fear, Loss and Betrayal’ (debuting June 18) reveals the sobering realities behind America’s obsession with dogs, using startling images to show not only how far some dog lovers will go for theirpets, but how far the nation has to go before it treats all dogs humanely.

Americans have conducted a long love affair with canines, but lost amidst all the pampering are unpleasant truths about dog ownership, care and commerce, not to mention the daunting odds that face millions of unwanted shelter animals. Directed by Ellen Goosenberg Kent, Amanda Micheli and Jenny Carchman.

‘Me @The Zoo’ (June 25) is an in-depth exploration of the phenomenon of internetcelebrity. Profiling teenage video blogger Chris Crocker, who captured the international spotlight with his infamous “Leave Britney Alone” YouTube declaration, the film reveals how video sharing and social platforms have shaped the way people tell their stories and mediate their lives. An official selection of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, U.S. Documentary Competition; directed by Chris Moukarbel and Valerie Veatch.

‘Marina Abramović the Artist is Present’ (July 2) is an exclusive, behind-the-scenes portrait of “the grandmother of performance art” as she prepares for a blockbuster retrospective exhibit of her controversial work at The Museum of Modern Art. This mesmerizing cinematic journey inside the world of radical performance reveals an astonishingly magnetic, endlessly intriguing woman who draws no distinction between life and art. Directed by first-time filmmaker Matthew Akers.

‘Hard Times: Lost on Long Island’ (July 9), directed and produced by Marc Levin (HBO’s duPont Award-winning “Triangle: Remembering the Fire” and Emmy-winning “Thug Life in D.C.”), looks at the long-term unemployed and the shrinking of the middle class. Chronicling the lives of four families over a six-month period, beginning in summer 2010, the film chronicles the growing problems and despair of subjects searching in vain for employment.

‘The Tsunami & The Cherry Blossom’ (July 16), recently nominated for a Documentary Short Oscar, follows survivors of Japan’s March 2011 tsunami, who find the courage to revive and rebuild as cherry blossom season begins. The film is an allegory about the transient nature of life and the healing power of Japan’s most beloved flower. Directed by Lucy Walker (the Oscar-nominated documentary feature “Waste Land”).

‘Birders: The Central Park Effect’ (July 16), reveals the extraordinary array of wild birds who grace Manhattan’s celebrated patch of green and the equally colorful New Yorkers who schedule their lives around the rhythms of migration. A 2012 SXSW selection in Documentary Feature Competition, it focuses on seven subjects who have discovered a profound connection with this hidden natural world and regularly visit the park, including author Jonathan Franzen, Anya, a teenager fascinated with the birds because they are “so alive, active, varied, and beautiful,” and Starr Saphir, the “matriarch” of Central Park bird watching. Directed and produced by first-time filmmaker Jeffrey Kimball.

‘Vito’ (July 23) recounts the life of Vito Russo, one of the founding fathers of the gay liberation movement. Playing a pivotal role in the formative years of the GAA (Gay Activists Alliance), GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), he was also a writer, best known for “The Celluloid Closet,” the first book to examine how LBGT people were portrayed in the movies. Just months before his death from AIDS in 1990, Russo remained an active lecturer on gay issues, traveling to college campuses and gay film festivals. Directed by Jeffrey Schwarz (“Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story”).

‘About Face: Supermodels, Then and Now’ (July 30), directed by portrait photographer and filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (HBO’s “The Black List” and “The Latino List”), explores the lives of some of the fashion world’s most legendary models, highlighting the complex relationship between physical appearance and the business of beauty.

The film features conversations with such celebrated supermodels as Carol Alt, Marisa Berenson, Karen Bjornson, Christie Brinkley, Pat Cleveland, Carmen Dell’Orefice, Jerry Hall, Bethann Hardison, Beverly Johnson, China Machado, Paulina Porizkova, Isabella Rossellini, Lisa Taylor and Cheryl Tiegs, revealing their role in defining — and redefining — beauty over time. An official selection of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

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