SONG IN BLOOD
The world is covered with great puddles of blood.
Where does it flow to, all this shed blood?
Is it the earth drinking to intoxication?
Funny way to get drunk, then:so well behaved, so dull...
No, the earth does not get itself drunk.
There's nothing wrong in the way earth spins.
It just moves regularly its little greengrocer1 cartrain...snow...hail...good weather...
It never gets drunk ;it hardly indulges once in a whilein a measly little volcano.
It spins, the earth.
It spins with its trees, its gardens, its houses.
It spins with its great patches of blood,
and all living things spin with it and bleed.
And it doesn't care,
the earth.It spins and all the living things start screaming.
It doesn't care.It spins.It keeps spinning
and the blood keeps flowing...
Where does it flow to,
all this shed blood?
The blood of murders, the blood of wars,
the blood of misery,
and the blood of men being tortured in jail,
the blood of children quietly tortured by their Daddy and Mommy,
and the blood of men bleeding from the head in loony bins.
And the blood of the roofer,
when the roofer slips and falls from the roof.
And the blood that comes and flows profusely with the newborn,
with the new child...
The mother screaming, the child crying...
The blood flows... The earth spins,
the earth keeps spinning,
the blood keeps flowing.
Where does it flow, all this shed blood?
The blood of beaten up, humiliated, suicided, shot, sentenced men,
and the blood of those who die just like that, by accident.
A living man walks by in the street,
with all his blood inside.All of a sudden he's dead,
and all his blood is outside,
and the other living men wipe the blood away.They carry the corpse away,
but the blood is stubborn,
so here, where the dead laid,
much later, a trace of
blackened blood still spreads out.Congealed blood,
rust of life, rust of corpses.
Blood curdled like milk,
like milk does when it turns,
when it turns like the earth spins,
like the earth spinning
with its milk and its cows,
with its living and its dead.
The earth spinning with its trees, its living, its housesThe earth spinning with marriages, burials shellfishes regiments
the earth that spins and spins and spins
with its great rivers of blood.
(Jacques Prévert, Paroles, 1946)
Blood flows equally from our head, to all of our ten toes and fingers. It is punctuated by the rhythm of our beating heart. In this uninterrupted conversation between our lungs and our heart we find life. Our “blue” blood, poor in oxygen is expulsed out of the heart into the lungs that turns it back to “red” oxygen fuelled blood, that is finally sent to the rest of the body, over and over and over.
Our blood flows in our veins as a sign of health, it flows every day, every second of every day, even when we sleep and take a break from life, our heart doesn’t. It diligently continues to beat, contract, expand, and pump blood to feed every inch of our body.
And so, standing up, sitting on a chair, on a floor, in fetal position, lying on the ground, eating, making love, our blood flows continuously.
But there is a fine line that separates the blood from inside of spilling out; our thinnest veins are up to 1 mm in diameter. This leaves us to imagine how frail their walls are…
A slight cut, and… splash! This contained venous system goes out of its designed route and spills out.
Blood, red resin of life, also represents death. It is indeed distressing to see blood and once it is spilled and exposed it becomes difficult to see health. Between fear and repulsion, we feel helpless because we can’t push it back in, all we can do is look at it as it flows out.
The colour of blood probably plays a big role in the impact it has on us; deep red, intense, thick, warm.
Blood as a (tension) tool
When performing Rhythm 10 Abramovic laid 20 knives of various sizes in front of her, while her left hand was place on a white surface. As she stabbed the space between her fingers with all her speed, a recording of her life store narrated by her would play in the background. Every time she would stab herself, you would hear a gasp, then, start seeing a red trail of blood staining the white surface.
The public was completely hooked, like hypnotized by the scene they were looking at, and created a complete unity with the artist and the work, their attention and tension being part of the whole piece.
This very state of extreme tension, so essential to Abramovic’s work is mostly fuelled by the fact that she pushes her body to extremes; scarification, and the fact that blood naturally flows out of such act, the public can’t help but swing between fascination and fear.
Marina Abramovic, Rhythm 10, 1973
Blood as a sacred symbol
Fraco B, Oh Lover Boy, 2001-2005
For Franko B, blood is not only the source of life but also of all his works. In “Oh lover boy” he lays on a white tilted platform, with his naked body covered in white too. He looks like a crucified ghost.
He lays there completely still, as blood flows out of two self-inflicted cuts on his arms. The tilted surface makes the blood run down, like tiny rivers forming, or even veins.
There is something quite ritualistic in this process, as well as empowering; back in the days blood was thought to be the carrier of diseases and bloodletting was a very popular way of letting people. In this modern ritualised way of approaching this, Franko B cleanses himself from the inside, but a meticulous, calculated and controlled way. His naked exposed body is a sign of gaining that total control as well as letting go and being vulnerable.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Giunta Pisano, Crocifisso di Santa Maria degli Angeli, 1230-1240
Him lying down, with his arms stretched to the side can’t help but remind us of the crucifiction of the Christ, as well as the marks lefts by his body and shed blood remind us of the Saint Suary.
Throughout time, cultures and religion, blood always had a sacred connotation.
The common way to shed blood sacredly was to sacrifice a being for a god.
No wonder that in Sacr-ifice we hear Sacr-ed, the act of sacrificing being a way of turning whatever is on the altar sacred by the act of killing it and of course spilling its blood.
Blood transcends the fact that it is just a bodily fluid, until becoming a sort of divine seal a way of signing in blood a contract humanity has with god.
“Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
(Exodus - 24,8)
Shroud of Turin, 1260–1390
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Codex Magliabechiano, mid 16th century
Blood as a ritual
Ana Mendieta, Death of a chicken, 1972
For Mendieta, blood is also one of her main element/material.
Blood as a sign of violence,
Blood as part of our fragile humanity, put at risk when blood ends up outside of us.
Blood as a sign of a crime, of a rape.
Blood as menstrual spots left by women.
Blood as an organic fluid, part of nature itself, flowing in all beings around the planet.
In her Chicken piece, Mendieta beheads a hen, and then holds it tight as it splatters blood all over her naked body, the white tile and its white feathers.
The “virginal” whiteness of the surface on which blood splashes and soils it, is recurrent amongst performance artists. The violence and intensity of this red is only emphasised by the pureness of the surface it is now staining. There is not better contrast that blood red on immaculate white.
In the chicken piece, Mendieta presents violence brought onto a defenceless animal, but what she is truly showing us is the aftermath of violence. We are face with the poor creature’s struggle, witnessing its death in its last jolts of life.
This piece clearly references to Santeria practices that use sacrifice as a ritualistic way of keep the a connection with their gods as well as mainting the religion alive. Indeed without the sacrifice the religion would die out.
Interesting paradox where the death of a being would be mean the life of another spiritual one. It is important to note as well that the blood of the victim is shed for the spirits to feed on (alike other religions). The meat only is for human consumption.
These practices are usually made in the event of a wedding, birth, death of even healing.
It is an interesting point to make given Mendiate act; showing the aftermath of violence as well as sacrificing the hen for the healing of that specific violence.
Ana Mendieta, Untitled, 1973
Blood as abject
Kiki Smith, A man, 1988
It has already been established that symbolically speaking, blood is life. But blood is also death. And that’s what Blood pool tried to emphasize. This sculpture was made during a time where AIDS wreaked havoc. This leads us to the fatal conclusion that this very blood that is indispensable for our survival and health can also be the reason for our sickness and decay at the same time that we live and breath.
Kiki Smith’s pieces always challenge representation of the human body that is in art history usually idealized and most in importantly in one piece.
Her dismembered work Red man is a perfect example of this, as she dismembers, takes apart and rearranges the body as she pleases.
The bloody body is pinned to a wall, like we would hang a coat of a painting. We are confronted the harsh reality that our body is made of detachable body parts. Limbs that are just assembled to a trunk like doll would.
Blood here is used for a more naturalistic intention. It is here to represent the reality of who we really are behind this pristine, clean, skin.
All this meat and blood wrapped in a present of “normalcy”, topped by the all thinking, supreme brain that “elevates us above the rest.
Kiki Smith, Blood pool ,1992
Blood as source of life
Louise Bourgeois, The birth, 2006
Louise Bourgeois, Eternity, 2009
When talking about blood, how forget that it is something that most women encounter periodically in their life. Blood is part of our body’s natural mode of operation. Bleeding from our most intimate part is sign of health, of a body that works “properly”
It is so ingrained in our life, in the way to apprehend our body and the understanding of “womanhood” as a broad concept, yet it is still shamed, hidden and considered dirty.
And what better way is there than to show, obviously that this very “dirty blood” is actually where life takes place, symbol of the cycle of life.
I say the cycle of life, because as Kristeva states it, women hold the power of both life and death. The ability of carrying a baby for seven month and giving birth, as well as the monthly menstrual blood that on the other end represent death, the death of a potential life that never happened.
When representing the female body on paper, Bourgeois often uses the color red, blood red.
She says:
Red is the colour of blood.
Red is the colour of paint.
Red is the colour of violence.
Red is the colour of danger.
Red is the colour of shame.
Red is the colour of jealousy.
Red is the colour of grudges.
Red is the colour of blame.
(Quoted in Morris 2007, p.83.)
To this I would also add, red is the color of warmth, like the warm blood expelled form the body.
Warmth like the body of a mother that holds her child next to her chest after giving birth. But red is also the color of deep passion, and blinded anger.
To finish, red is the color of burning desire; when you thing about it, sexual act is enabled because both bodies prepare for it. The body fires up entirely, the heart starts beating fast, and the blood of the body starts rushing down our body.
The heart works hard, pumping blood and sending it to our sexual organs. Then starts a long conversation between the two, it is only thanks to our cardiovascular system that we are able to make love and feel pleasure.
Carolee Schneemann, Blood work diary, 1972
Blood can also sometimes be a erotic trigger. Tampopo is a movie centred around food, but also sensations; in the oyster scene, the man cuts his lip while trying to swallow the inside of an oyster. For this reason the oyster fisher empties it in her hand and then present it to the man’s mouth for him to eat of the palm of her hand. A drop of blood falls on the oyster and from that point a certain tension installs between the characters. From this point, the man passionately swallows the oyster, as if he was kissing her hand, then, she instantly starts licking his lip in a candid but also very sexual manner. He tasted from her hand a mix of oyster and blood, but she also tasted of his lip the same mix of sea and blood.
Juzo Itami, Tampopo, 1985, Blood and oyster scene