The self-billed “grandmother of performance art,” Marina Abramovic, who in 2010 famously sat, silent and still, inside the Museum of Modern Art for some 736 hours, has sold her Soho co-op for $3.2 million, city records show. The Serbian artist, who is the subject of the just-released documentary “The Artist is Present,” purchased the one-bedroom loft at 70 Grand Street, at Wooster Street, for $1.5 million in the late 1990s.
The unit, which architect Dennis Wedlick had designed following Abramovic’s purchase of it, was listed late last year for $3.95, according to Streeteasy.com. Curbed noted at The Time That The Place could easily be converted to a two-bedroom.
The seven-story building features mix of sales and rentals, and Abramovic’s unit features a home office and a walk-in closet.
“Marina loved the space, lived there for over a decade, but just felt it was time to move on,” Joshua Wesoky of Sotheby’s, who had the listing, told The Real Deal. “The apartment had been on the market a while, because it was essentially a giant one-bedroom, but Marina was very happy with the transaction.”
Wesoky declined to comment on where Abramovic would now reside.
The buyer was Melissa Ormond, a president at Madison Square Garden Entertainment, the company that books entertainment at high-profile venues, such as Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall.
Abramovic’s loft is among the units inside a building originally purchased by Lithuanian artist George Maciunas, regarded as the inventor of loft co-ops. Maciunas began buying commercial buildings in Soho in the early 1960s. He would then roll dice to determine which units went to which artists; they were used as live–work space and many were inhabited by the artists who would ultimately transform the demographics of Soho. The building was called Fluxhouse III, and was eventually deeded to a group called simply Grand Street Artists Etc. in 1986 for a total of $10, according to city records.
Abramovic was not immediately available for comment.