Bili Bidjocka « …Do Not Take It, Do Not Eat It, ThisIs Not My Body… »
Solo Exhibitionby Bili Bidjocka
October 6 - November 18 2012
For over two thousand years, manyartists have been inspired by The Last Supper, Christ's last meal during whichthe son of God delivered his testament. There are thirteen people at the table,as if in a perfectly staged play. With " …DoNot Take It, Do Not Eat It, This Is Not My Body… ", the Cameroonartist is showing us some sort of anti-Last Supper. A secular proposal in whichGod, in his Judeo-Christian conception, is absent. The event, or perhaps itwould be best to use the word "show", which doesn't correspond to thetheme at all, takes place in two stages. We could describe it as a diptych.
On the one hand, there is a purelyformal element: a bead curtain which, borrowing from the Léonard de Vincitableau, represents a sketch, an abstract projection, presenting us with anempty table. Christ and his apostles appear to have deserted their places andwe are left to wonder if it is primarily a temporal experience. The table isempty as if it is enough in itself. As if it doesn't matter if the meal tookplace before or after. It is up to us to fill the haunted void. This void,which we know represents the very essence of all spirituality: the omnipresenceof absence. Absence as impossible idealisation, absence as a grip that is neverlost and which will remain a memory. A naturally truncated memory since onlyour despairing determination convinces us thatthere is something to see. Absence as the symbol of a new epiphany.
This tableau's counterpart is alively and carnal scene (the word is used deliberately). A moment of physicalpresence, which the spectator is invited to look at. In this lively tableau, itis the meal, and not its abstraction, which marks the curtain's counterpoint. Thecurtain, in its principle function, is reduced to a decorative element. Adecorative element overdetermining that the performance will try to contradictby playing, not on the reference but on its contestation. The human becomes thecentre of every possible realisation, and the device as a whole represents thispart of the painting, which is so dear to the artist. Again, the meal itself isnot the objective. It is all in the process. The long road leading to the finalsupper. There may be no supper. As in the curtain, we are invited to imaginethe time before and afterwards. However, since the performance is the aestheticand conceptual contradiction of the curtain, the spectator has the privilege ofseeing that which cannot normally be seen, and will later say, as Rimbaud did,that they have seen, several times, that which man believes he has seen. This carnal moment, this moment of life, inthe main sense of the term, undoubtedly holds the key to the riddle presentedby the title of this moment. It depicts the age-old battle between God and men.
This ontological experience, whichcombines the secular and the sacred whilst humanising concepts that have beenlost, by dint of its meaning being mechanically repeated, reminds us thatsharing, in its simplicity and spontaneity, is what makes humanity. A reminderwhich is greatly appreciated in these troubled times.
