The Offer

performance

duration:

19'20"

location:

Ex Rufa Gallery, Rome

note:

The performer is found motionless on a white cloth, kneeling and tied with her tongue exposed outside her mouth. In front of her a pile of coins and a bowl full of red wine, behind her a knife.

Whenever a viewer puts a coin in her mouth, she holds the coins in her mouth and dips her face in the wine. The dive time increases by a few seconds with each new coin. The cycle ends if one of the spectators understands the use of the contello and cuts the strings that bind the performer, if this does not happen the performer continues the circle of actions until she suffocates for the coins in the mouth or for the time of immersion in the wine.

The work refers to the artist's experience in contact with the sacred places of the Italian capital, where tourists insert two euros to be able to turn on the lights that allow the vision of the works of sacred subject. The wine creates a shroud on the white fabric and the coins become a symbol of the body of Christ.

The artist also refers to her need for a deeper, more active and visceral spiritual of which she has memory in early childhood with her gypsy great-grandmother from whom her family has distanced her by not allowing her to recognize and live the culture of the maternal family.

The resistance in holding the coins and the breath, the constant burning of wine in the nose and in the eyes show an act of silent and constant sacrifice in contrast with the contemporary perception of commodification of religions and paths of spiritual evolution.

credits:

Conceived, developed and performed by Eloisa Calabrese

Video and Photos by Chantal Spapens