Performance artist Marina Abramovic has ended plans for her OMA-designed upstate New York art institute, leaving questions about what happened to the $2.2 million she raised from a slate of celebrity patrons and nearly 5,000 Kickstarter donors.
When Abramovic first announced the project in 2012, she touted the plans as transformative for the town of Hudson, New York. To be known as the Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI), the facility was intended to create a new space for the “collaboration between art, science, technology and spirituality.”
Abramovic tapped OMA’s Rem Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu to design the space, located within an old 33,000-square-foot theater. Early architectural concepts were daringly experimental – ideas included a theater with seats that could be individually rolled away if visitors were to fall asleep during planned hours-long performances.
.jpg?1510680321 "Some of OMA's design concepts. Image Courtesy of OMA")
