Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Life in His Mouth, Death Cradles Her Arm 2016. Lent by Tate Americas Foundation, courtesy of the Latin American Acquisitions Committee 2021 . © reserved.
10 rooms in Artist and Society
How do histories and actions exist on our bodies? Ramírez-Figueroa uses performance to tell stories about memory and identity
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa draws on memories and stories from his life in Guatemala, including family members who were killed during this time. He was born in 1978 and moved to Canada at the age of six, when Guatemala was in the middle of a civil war (1960–96). The war was fought between the military government and rebel groups concerned about unfair land distribution. Most of the country was owned by foreign citizens and companies rather than Indigenous peoples who lived on the land. It is estimated that up to 200,000 people were killed or forcefully ‘disappeared’ during the conflict.
The three works in this room feature the artist performing small gestures of holding, painting and pressing to explore how we make the invisible visible, and vice versa. Blue Abstraction references the history of early black-and-white cinema, where figures were painted with colour to create the impression they had disappeared. Ramírez-Figueroa does this to reflect on the way our minds often suppress traumatic events. In Life in His Mouth, Death Cradles Her Arm the artist stands in a Guatemalan cemetery holding a shawl or shroud that ‘weeps’ as water drips to the floor. In Print of Sleep, he stages a mysterious ritual, where he uses a bedframe to make imprints on participants’ bodies.
Performance is central to Ramírez-Figueroa’s practice for the way it can transform our understanding of reality and everyday objects. He asks us what it means to exist, to represent, and to re-present, stories left untold. Action happens to figures in these videos, in the same way that events happen to us, and we are left to draw our own conclusions.
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Life in His Mouth, Death Cradles Her Arm 2016
Life in His Mouth, Death Cradles Her Arm 2016 is a single-channel video with sound of a performance by Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa. Lasting just under six minutes, it shows the artist holding a bundle wrapped in a shawl or shroud as he stands still in the passageway between the high wall-graves of the General Cemetery in Guatemala City. The performance begins at night and ends at dawn, and throughout the course of the video it becomes apparent that the artist is holding a block of ice which gradually melts to create a small puddle between his feet. This durational performance has been edited down to a few minutes for the video and consists of mostly static footage of the scene, with some close-ups of the artist and the drips falling from the shawl to the floor. At the end of the video the artist is no longer present, with only an off-centre view of the setting. The work was a reflection on the death of the artist’s brother and the high mortality rate of children in Guatemala as a result of the civil war (1960–96), with the artist explaining that he wanted to create a ‘blanket that could weep’ (artist’s statement for his exhibition at the New Museum, New York 2018, https://archive.newmuseum.org/sounds/14330, accessed 28 June 2020).
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artworks in Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Blue Abstraction 2012
Blue Abstraction 2012 is a single-channel video with sound of a performance by Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa. Shot in a continuous take that lasts just under six and a half minutes, it shows a young man standing motionless by a dirt road in the middle of a landscape. He is approached by the artist who carries with him a can of blue paint and paintbrush. He applies paint in broad brushstrokes across the clothes and body of the man until his entire form is covered. The video ends with the artist walking away and the figure continuing to stand still. Ramírez-Figueroa’s use of blue paint is a reference to the history of early black and white cinema, which utilised the tendency for the film stock to turn blue objects white by covering figures in the colour to create the impression that they had disappeared.
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artworks in Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Print of Sleep 2016
Print of Sleep 2016 is a is a single-channel video with sound of a durational performance by Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa. Edited down to a little under eighteen minutes for the video, the performance was originally presented at the sixth edition of the biennial event If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want To Be Part of Your Revolution, Amsterdam in 2016 and again at KunstWerke in Berlin, where this video was filmed. It depicts a predominantly empty white room with a number of bare metal-framed beds with wire-mesh supports, some double-tiered, and lit underneath by fluorescent tubes that are placed across the space. The scenario recalls a temporary shelter or makeshift hospital. Standing and sitting by each bedframe are figures wearing predominantly white clothing consisting of simple t-shirts, leggings and trousers. The artist is dressed in white and moves through the space, accompanied by another figure dressed in dark nondescript clothing holding a paint palette with roller and with a tote-bag hanging from his shoulder. Throughout the performance, Ramírez-Figueroa uses the roller to cover the wire-mesh support of the beds with black paint. He then places different parts of each participant’s body on the frame to create an imprint on either their clothing or a body-part. Once the print has been achieved, he sometimes places rolled up white towels under their head or feet as a form of support. The proceedings are conducted in silence with the only sound coming from the actions taking place. Close-ups of the participant’s body are at times shown in between the main moments of action. Toward the end of the video, Ramírez-Figueroa applies paint using a spatula-like object onto a different wire bed frame that he covers with a bed sheet, which is then draped over the body of a standing woman. Print of Sleep finishes with Ramírez-Figueroa taking his t-shirt off and printing his own body with the paint before standing, while all other figures appear in various states of rest.
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artworks in Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa
Art in this room
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa
Life in His Mouth, Death Cradles Her Arm
2016
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa
Blue Abstraction
2012
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa
Print of Sleep
2016