ABATTOIR

of COHEN Steven

SOUTH AFRICA, 2017, 00:14:50

Production : COHEN Steven
Genre : Filmed action, Performance, Video art
Keyword : action, animal, Violence, Homage

Summary :
The performance artwork for camera, Abattoir, was made in direct response to the death of my life-partner Elu Kieser. Elu and I met in 1997, fell in love and shared our everything for the next 20 years. We loved beyond words, we lived and worked together, we fused. We fought with each other but never against each other, with each other and against the world. Our weapon was our art. After the shock of Elu's sudden and brutal death by haemorrhage, I set out to find a ritual of lamentation and decided to wash myself in the blood of the blameless. I ethically but illegally negotiated my way into an abattoir for this purpose. The work is an expression of accepting my destiny in not dying alongside Elu, an experiment in how to deal with survivor guilt in an effort to keep my amputated heart still beating, in how to bear tribute to our lives so richly danced in poverty.

My curator at Stevenson Gallery, South Africa, has written of the work: "The first part of the video is dominated by the whiteness of fat and bloodless carcasses, protective rubber boots and aprons. The second part of the video is red with blood, life violently taken and unceremoniously drained into a tub along with other body fluids. Precariously navigating this hellish scene, and ritually immersing himself in the blood of innocents, Cohen's performance embodies a deeply felt pain and empathy for all suffering living beings." (Steven Cohen)

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