I was told by many that it was something not to be missed. According to a NY Times and a Washington Post review I didn't miss anything. The articles suggested that without the presence of the artist and the change of venue the work which originally had been intense and radical in its form and content was diluted with the use of professional hard bodied actors and dancers who had been trained to perform the work. In the piece "Imponderabillia" a naked man and woman face each other with enough space between them for a person to pass through originally it was Marina and Ulay and the only way to enter the adjoining room was to pass through the naked figures, at the MOMA there was an alternate escape route further diluting her work.
NY Times article by Holland Cotter "Maybe it couldn’t have been otherwise. The work and the sense of energizing newness it once radiated were, as Kaprow knew, the product of a particular time and culture. The recreated performances in MoMA’s show are similarly products of a milieu that once made them transgressive, poetic or simply gave them heat, but is now gone. And, through no fault of the performers, the pieces feel like leftover things: flat, dutiful; artifacts."
Maybe great works of art can not be recreated. Maybe time place and social climate have more to do with the way we view work than the work itself. I know when I watch a film or hear a song that has been redone by another performer and re shot with a new director cast and crew it looses much of its intensity and originality. How would we feel if gre
