Artwork

The Heart of Darkness (2012)
Ink on leather and salt
152 cm

Around 2010, a photo of a handcrafted submarine appeared in various newspapers and magazines. It was austere in materials and labor but ambitious in purpose, used for the distribution of cocaine. It went from one city to another, circulating under rivers and lagoons, crossing borders unnoticed.

The submarine, of considerable dimensions, was the result of drug trafficking technology, and it went down because of human error. The crewmen, suffocated, came out for some air and were therefore noticed and detected by the Army.

The image was apocalyptic and reminded me of Apocalypse Now, the movie by Francis Ford Coppola which is based on Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I was led by this analogy and the impact of the image to read the book, making an inevitable link with the extraction of ivory in the Belgian Congo, by the immense colonial industries that slaughtered the elephants without mercy or respect. The exchange of tusks as merchandise referred to me to the frequent, sadist murders of drug dealing. The merchandise in itself loaded with symbols of power and dominance.

The color of ivory also reminded me of the whiteness of cocaine and of salt. The relationship may sound like a triangulation, but it has its own logic. Salt was once currency, an economic exchange. Ingots or lumps of salt crossed the dessert without losing value until they cracked or break. The Roman Empire paid wages with the remaining dust. Salary was defined as the measure of salt for a day of work.

These tusks hang from the gallery’s ceiling with a simple wire that holds the rings in the leather bag. The cylindrical bag where people used to keep coins was called the canutt – it became firm as more coins were put inside of it.

The tusks are hung from the ceiling and (to my initial surprise) move in rotation, slowly and in awkward grace, turning simultaneously and leaving a couple of salt figures on the floor.

Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery

 

 

 

 

location: “Advance and retreat of globalization” MAIN EXHIBITION,Macao Museum of Art
16/07/2021~17/10/2021