Maria Stamenkovic and Matthew Rogers perform naked in the Museum of Modern Art’s eyebrow-raising new exhibit, Marina Abramovic’s “The Artist is Present.”
Tamara Beckwith
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The exhibit features 38 performers in rotating shifts of eight facing each other at a doorway or lying under a skeleton or posing in other pieces, mostly in the nude.
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One performer, Amelia Uzategui Bonilla, told The Post last week, “We’re all prepared for discomfort. You just have to suck it up!”
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Matthew Rogers (pictured), 31, who teaches Pilates when he’s not on display, says, “It can be a little sketchy. Sometimes, there’s that feeling like, ‘Oh, this is a little gross,’ and then it’s gone.”
Tamara Beckwith
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All the “The Artist is Present” performers went through a mini-boot camp to prepare for the exhibit. For five days, they led a monk-like existence — fasting, not speaking and not reading — while doing exercises designed to help them develop self-control, including bathing in an icy pond, walking in slow motion and counting grains of rice.
READ MORE: NAKED-ART EXHIBIT DRAWS ‘TOUCHY’ CROWD
Tamara Beckwith