Marco Evaristti. “I Believe In Love After Death”

About

Evaristti has dedicated a large part of his artistic interest to the taboos of civilisation, and he is fearless as he dives into the most suppressed and consciously forgotten subjects of society. Evaristti works with a high presence of performativity to draw the beholder into the world of the artist. Here he encourages them to look into the mirror of art and see themselves, and the society they are a product of. Evaristti made this very clear in 2000, when the art museum Trapholt exhibited the controversial work ​Helena​. Ten living green swordtails were displayed in blenders and it was up to the audience to decide over life and death of this small fish. In 2012 Evaristti directed hard spotlight on the worldwide sale of human organs in the piece ​Live Action. ​With large posters and an actual website, he made it possible for his audience to auction off their own kidney, thus allowing the performative participation of the beholder exhibit the double standard of the western world and the systematic exploitation of people who live in poverty.

The responsibility of art as a catalyst of social change is something that seems to come natural to the art of Evaristti. He has never shown any fear or hesitation in delivering the provocation or virtual slap-in-the-face that refreshes a perspective and changes a human life. In 2003, Evaristti created the work ​Goodbye Kiss​ in collaboration with a Muslim Lebanese woman. The two of them went shopping for the ingredients to make a suicide bomb and ended the performance by kissing until drawing blood. The mixed blood of the artist of Jewish decent and the Muslim woman was applied to the printed photo of their union in a kiss goodbye exhibited right above the finished bomb. Just as controversial is the piece ​Rolexgate ​from 2006, which is a golden replica of the gate leading into Auschwitz, where pieces of gold fillings stolen from Jewish prisoners have been used for the sculpture.

With ​I Believe In Love After Death, ​Evaristti handles two subjects that are both as natural as they are taboo: sex and death. The one thing we know with certainty is that we all must die, and it is this very knowledge that separates us from every other living species. This awareness functions as an enormous force of life and creates the fundamental question of what to do with your time on earth. Another powerful force of life is the sexual drive. It has been the cause of glory as well as gore. For the sake of the human libido leaders are created and destroyed, marriages crash, power relations are formed and strong connections among humans come into existents. Together, life force and sexual drive make a powerful cocktail, and it seems to be this very combination that serves as the fuel for Evarittis newest solo show. Evaristti has often approached the question of the choices we make in life and how we choose to spend the time we have been given. Evaristti fuses sex and death in his huge drawings of copulating skeletons, and ​I Believe In Love After Death ​investigates the complicated relationship of creation and destruction between death and sex. The vision of Evaristti is that of hope and out of death grows the unavoidable existential force that is the force of life itself.