Artist Contemplating Torture
Medium: Multimedia performance/installation
Dimensions: Variable
Date: 2008 – 2009
Location:
• Atrium, Cosby Building, Spelman College, Atlanta, GA
• Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town, South Africa
• Las Orquideas Environmental Sculpture Park, Portobelo, Panama
Description: This performance art ritual was initially conceived as a protest
statement against the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela during the apartheid era in
South Africa under the title Artist Contemplating the Fate of Those Who Speak of
Freedom. It was first presented in New York City as part of a Plexus Art Co-
Opera in 1986 at CUANDO in the Lower East Side and later that year at
Kenkeleba Gallery also in the Lower East Side. The following year the work
was recreated for Franklin Furnace aboard the Staten Island Ferry and then at
Fashion Moda in the Bronx. In each performance an artist sat bound and gagged
in front of an “altar” installation. Polaroid photos of these artists were taken and
placed on the “altar.”
The work has now been redesigned with a new title – Artist Contemplating
Torture as a protest statement against the torture of innocent people worldwide.
The names of tortured victims were gathered from Amnesty International, as
well as from personal memories and experiences of the participants.