On Monday, among the second-floor contemporary-art galleries of the Museum of Modern Art, visitors are happening upon an unexpected sight: the actress Tilda Swinton lying on a mattress in a glass box, apparently asleep. Ms. Swinton, an Oscar winner for the 2007 film “Michael Clayton,†has brought her performance piece “The Maybe†to MoMA, 18 years after she first performed it for a week in the Serpentine Gallery in London.
She has also lain at Museo Barracco in Rome, and on Saturday she began taking up residence at the MoMA in the Agnes Gund Garden Lobby. In the piece she wears plain clothes and moves occasionally, MoMA’s spokeswoman, Margaret Doyle, said by telephone on Monday. A description card accompanying the piece - its only explanation - reads: “Living artist, glass, steel, mattress, pillow, linen, water, and spectacles.†Ms. Doyle said Ms. Swinton would perform the piece periodically this year, and that a key part of the conception was to have no published schedule in advance.
