At the Museum: Lip-Locked for the Sake of Art
November 29, 2007 | 11:33 am | by t-blender |Rate It:
chicago tribune: People congregate near the doorway, too timid to intrude, or stare from an adjacent balcony, careful to keep their distance. Some pretend to gaze out the nearby window. Others take a quick look and leave — only to return again and again.
“I feel like I shouldn’t be watching,” said a wide-eyed Roxanne DeLuca, 19, who nevertheless gawked with a clutch of other teens who provided a steady chorus of giggling and breathless commentary, including “Do they really do this all day?” and “Do they enjoy this?” and “Is this pure art?”
Sprawled before them were Jessie Marasa, 24, and Ben Law, 25, two performers with chiseled bodies who were rolling around on the floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art, their lips locked, their arms and legs intertwined as they engaged in a rapturous kiss. Here, in the 4th-floor gallery, making out has become modern art.
For seven to 10 hours a day — whenever the museum is open — a rotating cast of a half-dozen couples working in two-person, 2 1/2-hour shifts, have engaged in marathon sessions of mouth-to-mouth as part of an exhibit called “Kiss,” a performance piece that re-creates famous smooches from art history.
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