The Artist is Present

"We always project into the future or reflect in the past but we are so little in the present." - Marina Abramovic This is a self-portrait of the artist, Julie Headland, as a child. It is also a tribute to artist Marina Abramovic the preeminent performance artist who performed "The Artist Is Present" - a 736-hour and 30-minute static, silent piece, in which she sat immobile in the the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art while spectators took turns sitting opposite her. Abramovic is well known for performing in the nude and in one of her pieces she wears her father’s army hat. Both her father and mother were Yugoslav Partisans during the Second World War and were considered national heroes after the war. The artist, Julie Headland, is sympathetic with this gesture because her own father was in the military and she has many memories from childhood filled with visions of him in his uniform.