Aggression

2004

The happening takes place in a boxing ring built in a museum setting and includes a crowd of invited observers who arrive with certain instructions regarding the event.  The defender is a person cloaked in a white cloth and wearing a wide skirt that holds the attacker at a distance.  Around the body of the cloaked figure is a barrel-like construction attached to twenty-one metal tentacles ending in heads roughly a meter from the body.  The attacker is the artist.  He paints by punching the heads, which are encased in plastic bags that contain transparent colored liquids, and knocking them loose to fall on a floor of white cloth canvas.  The victim and aggressor circle, their positions interchanging.  The aggressor “wins” when all of the heads are knocked off.  It’s very possible that the defender may, in a clever defense, remain passively in a corner, barring the attacker from reaching all twenty-one heads.

300 x 240 x 300 cm
118 x 94 x 118 in