Drawn and Quartered

Back in May, one of the first assignments for my one and only art class this summer (Investigations) was to design plates for a performance called Drawn and Quartered. We collaborated as a class with two amazing artists at the gallery Redline. I only have one crappy little picture of one of my plates, but I'll put it on here anyways at the end...

The Main Idea of the performance : " The torturous act of being quartered, a performance in its own right during its time, is reserved soley for human beings, and more specifically, men. Not always a successful practice, sometimes intervention was necessary by way of slicing of the tendons to help the process along. What happens when we substitute an animal food source for the human in this gruesome spectacle? Can we reconsider meat as flesh? Can we recast ourselves as agents in the dynamic and tense act of quartering--an act analogous to our contemporary abstraction of the ugly task of slaughter into neatly consumable packages of meat?"

The performance was extremely visceral, the first thing you notice was a cooked goat hanging from the ceiling by four ropes . At the ends of each rope was a black sandbag so that when the weight was shifted in the carcass the sandbags would drop and the goat would swing. this was a very important element, because the performance was entirely based on slicing the goat apart and eventually snapping the tendons! Underneath the goat was a table with many various cutting instruments including butcher knives, scissors and various other knives. Surrounding the table was a ring of small tables and chairs set with napkins, utensils, and the plates we made.

The plates were made by printing images onto special paper that can be set into water and then transferred onto any surface. The ink in the paper contains red iron oxide which attaches just like a glaze would when fired onto ceramics. We tried to choose images that would add to the overall experience, either in a pleasant way or a disturbing way... Some of the images I used were a circular scent chart, torture devices, and the slicing chart you will see in the picture below. But there were many different approaches. There were pictures of baby's, jesus, circus animals, some real strange stuff.

Watching people go around in a ritualistic style, slicing pieces off this goat and then consuming the chunks of flesh, was very interesting. At one point people starting sawing through bone and ripping off the legs which sent the goat flinging around the room. Just the sound the knives made cutting through certain parts was enough to make one practically sick. But it was also done in a very classy way, each person was served a glass of vodka, the goat was cooked with nice herbs, and at the end everyone was served delicious chocolates, a very nice juxtaposition...

I think I've probably written enough and I doubt anyone has red this far, but if your still interested there were 2 other performances along these lines. One where business men in suits sat around a table and ate sushi off of naked women's bodies, and another where people were served chickens which were cooked to look like chickens (with heads and feet...) not just like "meat" and while people were served (eating on the floor) there were chickens running around. To check out more about these performances go to ouiwe.org.



Sorry about the crappy quality of this photo!