Tania Bruguera
149.9 x 96.5 cm
Further images
In one version of the performance, Bruguera waits for her audience inside her home. Behind her hangs a large Cuban flag that the artist made from human hair. She wears the decapitated body of a lamb as a vest or armor over a white outfit. She is barefoot. In front of her, there is a vessel containing Cuban soil, along with a bowl of water and salt. She leans over the containers in a slow, mechanical manner, and carefully mixes the soil and salty water in her hand. She then proceeds to slowly eat the earth. Bruguera continues eating earth for approximately an hour. Eating earth slowly in a ritualistic way is a performance of empathy in which she identifies with the lost Indigenous Cuban.
Provenance
Estudio Brugera > Private Collection, Barcelona SpainExhibitions
“6th Havana Biennial” (parallel action at the artist’s home, Tejadillo 214), Havana, Cuba, 1997 (The original performance El peso de la culpa / The Weight of Guilt was realized privately at the artist’s residence during the period of the official biennial; chromogenic prints documenting the forty-five-minute action were subsequently produced and exhibited.)
“Desde el cuerpo: Alegorías de lo femenino,” Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela, opened February 15, 1998 (The chromogenic print documenting the 1997 performance was exhibited.)
“Tania Bruguera: Esercizio di Resistenza,” Franco Soffiantino Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy, November 27, 2003 – January 24, 2004.
“Portraits,” Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Kiel, Germany, July 22 – September 17, 2006.
“Arte no es Vida: Actions by Artists of the Americas 1960–2000,” El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY, United States (and touring venues), 2008.
“Tania Bruguera: On the Political Imaginary,” Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Purchase, NY, United States, January 28 – April 11, 2010 (Dedicated survey exhibition featuring the chromogenic print and related performance documentation from the Weight of Guilt series.)
“Valoarte International Art Exhibition,” Museo de Arte Costarricense, San José, Costa Rica, 2012 (Related version of the work presented.)
“Mana Miami,” Mana Wynwood, Miami, FL, United States, 2015.
Publications
“Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas,” edited by Coco Fusco, Routledge, London and New York, 1999 : pages 152–153 (Illustrated and discussed as a key work in the volume.)
“Cuba: Maps of Desire,” edited by Eugenio Valdés Figueroa et al., Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, 1999 : pages 156–157 (Discussed and illustrated.)
“Art Cuba: The New Generation,” edited by Holly Block, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 2001 : page 52 (Illustrated.)
“Holy Terrors: Latin American Women Perform,” edited by Diana Taylor and Roselyn Costantino, Duke University Press, Durham, 2003 (Discussed and illustrated in the chapter “Performing Greater Cuba: Tania Bruguera and the Burden of Guilt.”)
“Tania Bruguera: Esercizio di Resistenza,” edited by Roberto Pinto, bilingual Italian/English edition, Franco Soffiantino Arte Contemporanea, Turin, 2003 (Discussed and illustrated.)
“Performance: Live Art Since the 60s,” by RoseLee Goldberg, Thames & Hudson, London and New York, 2004 (Discussed and illustrated.)
“Cuba Avant-Garde: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Farber Collection,” edited by Abelardo Mena Chicuri, 2007 : page 57 (discussed pp. 54–58) (Illustrated and discussed.)
“Tania Bruguera: On the Political Imaginary,” edited by Helaine Posner, Gerardo Mosquera, and Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Charta / Neuberger Museum of Art, Milan and Purchase, 2009 (Dedicated monograph/catalog accompanying the 2010 exhibition; discusses and illustrates the work as a foundational piece.)
“Great Women Artists,” Phaidon Press, London and New York, 2019 : page 79 (Mentioned and illustrated.)
“The Sense of Brown,” by José Esteban Muñoz, Duke University Press, Durham, 2020 : Chapter 9 (“Performing Greater Cuba: Tania Bruguera and the Burden of Guilt”), pages 86–99 (Dedicated chapter discussion.)
“Tania Bruguera: Let Truth Be, Though the World Perish,” edited by Diego Sileo, 2020 (Discussed and illustrated as a key early work.)