Desnudo bajando la escalera

Overview

On February 11, 2014 at 5 in the morning, in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago de Chile, Lemebel performs Desnudo Bajando la Escalera. The title of the action is a clear reference to Duchamp, but while the latter broke down perception, Lemebel breaks down linear time through a series of quotes and references. The performance alludes to emblematic cases of human rights violations during the Chilean dictatorship. The place in front of which Lembel performs is the same as Yeguas Del Apocalipsis (the art collective founded in the late 1980s by Francisco Casas and Lemebel himself) second public appearance in 1988. The country is certainly not the same, and neither is Lemebel. The artist, however, performs an embodied analogy: his body takes the place of those that have disappeared, and by returning them to the public sphere, he showcases the repression and violence of state terrorism.