Marco Anelli's powerful portraits of the sittersin the historic 2010 Marina Abramovic'sperformance at the Museum of Modern Artin New York are now collected in their entiretyin the monograph: Portraits in the Presence ofMarina Abramovic.The centerpiece of The Artist is Present, theretrospective of this pioneer of performanceart, was Abramovic herself who sat silently inthe museum's atrium inviting visitors to takea seat across from her for as long as they chose.She sat every day for the run of the show—716hours and 30 minutes— and faced over 1500people, whose involvement completed thework. Photographer Anelli, who was presentduring the whole time of the performance,took portraits of all the visitors capturing themost intense moments of their engagementwith the artist.The people in the portraits represent the broadspectrum of human feelings and emotions ina wide variety of different ages, social groups,and backgrounds, and they include regular museumvisitors and tourists, as well as artists andfi lm stars like Lou Reed, Sharon Stone, Patti Smith, Bjork, James Franco and others.Anelli is not engaging the sitters or Abramovic directly, his meta-performance as gathered inPortraits in the Presence of Marina Abramovic is a compelling testament to the power of the gazeand our connection to one another.