Boiled Heart
(2006)

Boiled Heart

July 15, 2006
Performance / Installation
Gallery Apropos in Lucerne; Bonaventura (Anniversary: 35 years Apropos Lucerne)
Material: flower pot with rhizome, pitchfork without style, perfume bottle, Swiss army knife, mitten, five red soup plates, 2.5 kg cooked meat (pig's heart), spherical light metal pot (vase), five wine glasses, soup ladle, urine
Duration: 40 min.
Photos: Laura Laeser, Stella Pfeiffer

For the "Bonaventura" celebration of the 35th anniversary of Galerie Apropos, Monika Günther and Ruedi Schill (1941-2021) invited former students of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts to realize a performance.
The performers were: Daniel Häller, Tom Huber, Laura Laeser, Dominik Lipp, Stella Pfeiffer, Maurice Steinemann

Boiled Heart is a performance in five chapters.
1.
There is a cardboard box in a corner of the gallery space. One by one I unpack the objects in the box and distribute them in a circle around the room.
2.
I smash a flower pot with a mallet. A dried rootstock emerges. I impale a yellow perfume bottle from the 50s/60s on a metal prong of a pitchfork and stick it into the rhizome. I unfold a sack knife and plunge the blade into the rootstock as well. Then I spread five red plates stacked on top of each other in a circle and smash them with a mallet.
3.
I sit down in the middle of the circle of broken pieces and unwrap a boiled pig's heart wrapped in cellophane foil. I stuff my mouth with the meat until I can't eat any more and choke it down.
4.
At the back of the room I urinate into a spherical light metal pot. Then I carry the pot to the shop window, where there are five wine glasses. I use a silver ladle to scoop the urine into the five glasses. As soon as I have finished, I leave the action room.
5.
The traces of the actions remain as an installation in the room. The space and the installation can be walked through by the recipients. They thus become an active part of the installation. The installation exists as a work of art independent of the performance.