Miles Greenberg—mentee of Marina Abramovic—stages visually absorbing performance in New York

The Québécois performance artist Miles Greenberg—a protégé of Marina Abramović—debuted a captivating durational performance at Perrotin’s New York outpost last week, in which he meditatively balanced for seven hours on a rotating pedestal atop a stage blanketed with aromatic flowers while visitors (including Abramović) shuffled in and out of the gallery. The work evoked the stoic sublimity of classical sculpture, with Greenberg's nude body—save for a gilded loincloth—painted a dark polychrome. A corn starch deposit slowly dripped on him from the ceiling throughout the event, and by the end of the performance the artist was adorned with glistening lesions. Greenberg—who, at just 22 years old, has amassed an impressive curriculum vitae, including solo performances at Manifesta 11 and Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center in Southampton—conceived the piece, titled Pneumotherapy (II), during his residency at the Palais de Tokyo last year as the second installment of his -Therapy series, an ongoing collection of non-narrative, temporal performances that are equal parts athletic and visual feats.