Marina Abramovic

The ultimate artistic staring contest ended this week, with the final (700th) hour of Marina Abramovic’s performance piece at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. When it was all over, Abramovic fell from the wooden chair she had been sitting on since March 14 for her work, Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present, and knelt on the ground in her now-signature floor-length white dress. After 1,500 face-to-face interactions with strangers—including some big names like actress Sharon Stone, musician Rufus Wainwright, and CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour—who waited in line for hours to sit across from her and participate, Abramovic brought the MoMA back to what a museum should be, according to curator Klaus Bisenbach: "A real intimate, very close, revealing, very special experience ... with the art." A spokeswoman for the museum told CNN that more than half a million visitors saw Abramovic’s exhibit.