First, Kiss

“The Erotic Body” curated by Marina Abramović; 52nd Biennale of Venice, Venice, Italy; June 2007                                                                                                                                                                                                         For 6 hours each of 3 consecutive days, the artist requested the “first kiss” through a small hole in the glass-front booth at the entrance of the group exhibition, in order to open each viewer’s tactile awareness, kiss by kiss, before they entered the erotically charged space inside. In requesting a kiss as the admission fee, the artist harkens back to the romanticized days of carnivals and kissing booths, but with the work’s context and duration, she also suggests something complex and gritty, with peripheral associations to fair exchange, rejection, exploitation and worth.  Each day, the booth became warm and steamy, making the vision of the “woman in the box” more human and vulnerable (and perhaps less valuable).  An estimated count of kisses over the three days totalled more than a thousand.