Tatsumi Orimoto PUNISHMENT”

Performance 1st November at 7.00 pm

Exhibition 29th October to 20th December, from 12:00 am to 6:00 pm

Punishment - When communication is wasted

DNA is proud to present for the first time in Europe Tatsumi Orimoto´s Punishment. Following in the footsteps of the artist's “Communication Art”, this performance also features bread as its main element. Orimoto often uses bread because of its fundamental and basic nature. However, he does not only use it as a symbol for universal communication – something to which everybody can relate – but also as an allegory for Western culture. In the occidental context bread does not only take on meaning as part of the diet of the population but also because of its symbolism in Christianity, where it represents the body par excellence.

Tatsumi´s performance may be referring to Japanese history. On the 5 of February 1597, during the Azuchi-Momoyama Period, the government crucified 26 Christian missionaries in Nagasaki. At the time, Christian missionaries, who initially had been accepted in Japan in order to restrain the influence of Buddhist monks and to consolidate commercial relationships with Europe, were perceived by Toyotomi Hideyoshi as a destabilizing force and therefore were persecuted. However, Orimoto seeks to disconnect himself from historical references in order to stress the Universal and recurrent: the bread bearer, a prophet who carries a different message, is seen as A threat against the establishment and is repudiated and martyred. Thus his message spills, the box is empty, and communication fails. The message, as well as the bread, putrefies.

Tatsumi Orimoto
“PUNISHMENT”