Wark: This article considers the ways in which conceptual art served as a foundation for four feminist artists.

Nochlin: In considering the question of why there are no great women artists, Nochlin places the blame on the systematic exclusion of women from social structures and institutions.

Abramovic: In her persistent attempt to pull performance art from the moniker of alternative, this documentary traces Marina Abramovic’s path to her MoMA retrospective and “The Artist Is Present” exhibition.

Taylor: By incorporating the discourse of gender into contemporary art, Taylor questions what it is to create, view and engage “women’s art.”

Throughout “The Artist is Present,” I am struck by the level of audience engagement that the artist and her work incite. Marina Abramovic’s presence at her own retrospective alludes to her consistent path toward solidifying performance art in the mainstream art dialectic. Exhibiting at a palatable and massively appealing museum like MoMA places her work not only within the field of contemporary and modern art, but opens it to a large scale audience and not merely an elite viewership. Throughout the retrospective, the artist’s emphasis on performance is evident as nude artists stand throughout the MoMA engaging each other or the audience through gaze and presence. Though the emphasis on nudity initially seemed sensationalist and divisive, it is the reaction and engagement inspired in each viewer that assigns the work its weight. By demanding this sort of engagement from her audience, the artist elicits the response, involvement and immediate reaction of her audience.

This notion is very much carried over into Ambramovic’s physical involvement in the exhibition. Within “The Artist is Present,” Abramovic embodies her work and exercises a subjective agency discussed within Jayne Wark’s analysis of feminist art. Her role within the 3-month long work is dual as artist and art work. At the core of this is a human connection. Abramovic, silent and focused, engaged each sitter and transformed her own body into a work of conceptual art, visibly evoking varied emotive responses from each sitter. The work is thus entirely subjective and depends upon the audience as the interaction between artist and audience serves as the core of the performance.