Words that gave me the most relief this weekend: “These are the last moments of Adam Linder’s ‘Shelf Life.’”

They came at the end of an hourlong performance at the Museum of Modern Art that was one half of the inaugural commission for the museum’s new Kravis Studio. For the preceding 20 minutes, a voice whispering — as if to titillate people who get off on such sounds — had been methodically counting down the number of movements left in the work, periodically interjecting “wait … wait,” like a dominatrix version of an audio crosswalk alert.

I wondered if Mr. Linder, the choreographer who created “Shelf Life,” was daring the audience to leave. I wondered if he was testing the etiquette of a performance in a museum — a performance without seating, set up like any other exhibition, with visitors free to linger or keep walking.

It’s possible. “Shelf Life,” which smoothly alternates with Shahryar Nashat’s sculpture-and-video installation “Force Life,” certainly intends to provoke. But Mr. Linder has many other ideas he’s trying to get across.