Marina Abramovic and Alanna Heiss

Here is New York, the European view, as Ingela Lind visits the newly expanded Museum of Modern Art and compares notes on the re-installation of its collections with artist Marina Abramovic and P.S.1's Alanna Heiss. The conversation, which includes the seductions of fundamentalism, is as provocative as you might expect, with the added bonus of real insight.

Marina Abramovic is well known for her spirited work in performance and video, and her focus on the physical and psychological limits that a human being can endure. A recent three-channel video work, "Talk to Me," was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial. Her video installation, "Balkan Baroque," won the International Award at the 1997 Venice Biennale. In 2002, she riveted New Yorkers with a twelve-day performance that restricted her to silence and a diet of water and allowed her almost no privacy but did not prevent her from communing with her audience in ways known best to the human spirit. She is represented by the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York.

Alanna Heiss is the founding director of the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and director of WPS1.org. She is also the author of Dennis Oppenheim, Selected Works 1967-90: And the Mind Grew Fingers, and most recently published the comprehensive catalogue for "Katharina Sieverding:Close Up", the exhibition she organized for P.S.1, on view through January 23, 2005.

•