Marni Kotak Child Birth Performance @ Microscope Gallery, Bushwick

I met performance artist Marni Kotak a few years back after she graduated from Brooklyn Colleges MFA program and knew back then that she would make her way through the art world in a big way. Fearless, mindful, and intelligent, Marni would convert her apartment into overt consumer machines, perform naked with corporate brand stickers stuck to her body, and grab our attention with spectacle.

A new kind of uber-feminist perhaps? I thought Marni added a whole new dimension to the feminist discussion in art.

Enter hubby Jason Robert Bell, an artist of comparable ambition and talent, and all of a sudden we were witnessing a dynamic duo in action. I bumped into these "eskimo lovebirds" for their installation at the Fountain Art Fair this past spring and knew that the stage was set for something to remember. I highlighted their installation in my review of the Fountain Art Fair, which included a love igloo. For all I know, Baby Ajax may have been consummated right there at the fair.

Fast forward to the present, and Marni has made the big splash, including placenta, giving birth to a healthy and bouncing Baby Ajax at the Microscope Gallery in Bushwick this past Tuesday, October 25th, at 10:17 AM.

I have just gone through the press of this event from all over the world, looking at pictures of a happy family in a safe and nicely decorated gallery setting.

Brilliant!

Taking a page from HOT TOPIC Nicolas Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics, Marni brought real life into the gallery and gave us one of life's ultimate prizes, LIFE! What a beautiful and touching moment.

I started to chuckle a bit thinking about what abortion rights activists and right to lifers must be thinking about this epic event. Talk about starting a discussion, way to go Marni!

Whether you are a Occupy Wall Streeter, Tea Partier, undecided, or just plain bored and desperate, Marni gives us all reason to take pause and check ourselves. Making art by creating LIFE, wow!

One of Kotak's greatest gifts as an artist has been to rise above the standard delivery systems of art production. In this crowning achievement, Kotak gives us perspectives from the gallery that we have never seen in quite this way, questioning ideas of legitimacy, morality, ambition, love, consequence, safety, innocence, vulnerability, exposure, and above all FREEDOM!

Pray tell, "FREEDOM!"

Chalk one up for ART, Baby AJAX, Marni, Jason, and a brand new happy family!

Jason Robert Bell, Marni Kotak and myself @ Fountain Art Fair, NYC 2011.