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
Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas (Venezuela). The piece was exhibited in the exhibition “Desde el cuerpo: Alegorías de lo femenino” on February 15, 1998.
Museo Neuberger, Purchase (New York, USA). There was an exhibition titled On the Political Imaginary dedicated to Bruguera, where her performances, including “El peso de la culpa”, were featured.
Havana Biennial, 1997. The original performative version took place that year, and although it was not part of the official Biennial (the artist states she performed it at her home), it is a key presentation of the work.
Museo Neuberger (Purchase, New York). In 2010, the Neuberger Museum organized the exhibition On the Political Imaginary, dedicated to Bruguera’s performances. In this context, El peso de la culpa was exhibited. The exhibition included both her performance and related sculptures/concepts.
Publications
Illustrated on page 52: Art Cuba: The New Generation. Holly Block, 2001
Illustrated on page 57 (discussed pp. 54–58): Cuba Avant-Garde: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Farber Collection. Abelardo Mena Chicuri (ed.), 2007
Illustrated and discussed on pages 152–153: Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas. Coco Fusco (ed.), 1999
Discussed and illustrated on pages 156–157: Cuba: Maps of Desire. Eugenio Valdés Figueroa et al., Kunsthalle Wien, 1999
Discussed and illustrated (chapter “Performing Greater Cuba: Tania Bruguera and the Burden of Guilt”): Holy Terrors: Latin American Women Perform. Diana Taylor and Roselyn Costantino (eds.), 2003
Discussed and illustrated: Performance: Live Art Since the 60s. RoseLee Goldberg, 2004
Discussed and illustrated: Tania Bruguera: Esercizio di Resistenza. Roberto Pinto (ed.), 2003 (bilingual Italian/English)
Discussed and illustrated: Tania Bruguera: On the Political Imaginary. Helaine Posner, Gerardo Mosquera, Carrie Lambert-Beatty, 2009
Mentioned and illustrated on page 79: Great Women Artists. Phaidon Press, 2019
Dedicated Chapter 9 (“Performing Greater Cuba: Tania Bruguera and the Burden of Guilt”), discussed pp. 86–99: The Sense of Brown. José Esteban Muñoz, 2020
Discussed and illustrated as key early work: Tania Bruguera: Let Truth Be, Though the World Perish. Diego Sileo (ed.), 2020