New faces

Only one new edition of ...imagine... coming up, as part of today's 'ambitious' BBC Arts launch.

It is to feature the self-proclaimed 'grandmother of performance art', Marina Abramovic, approaching, like ..imagine...editor Alan Yentob, her 73rd birthday.

Alan, barefoot, was in an audience of 100 VIPs who watched a short performance by Marina at the opening of the 2009 Manchester International Festival. She drank water, stared at a stranger for 10 minutes and made the audience walk around, focusing on the foot 'touching' the ground.

Marina stared at Newsnight's Katie Razzall for a 5 minute report on Newsnight in 2014. In that same year BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz devoted half an hour of Radio 4 to Marina.  In 2012, BBC Four carried 'The Artist is Present', a one-hour 45-minute documentary on Marina, which they re-named Goddess of Performance. 

The Royal Academy will devote three months of 2020 to Marina's work.  Lord knows how long ...imagine... will be, devoted to "a series of encounters with Alan Yentob in New York, London, Munich and her native Belgrade".