Ingeniero de almas Tania Bruguera, 2000

Tania Bruguera was invited to participate in the 5th edition of Arte all'Arte by critics Roberto Pinto and Gilda Williams, and took part with an installation at the Fortress of Poggio Imperiale in Poggibonsi.

"Tania Bruguera chose the Fortress of Poggio Imperiale in Poggibonsi for her installation, where she created a work, like many others by this Cuban artist, focused on the relationship with power and the idea of coercion it exerts. An idea that also stems from the symbolic value of the place itself. The work consists, as often happens with this artist, of a performative part (of which traces will remain in the videos), a video installation, and a series of objects made of glass and alabaster that create an additional connection with local traditions.

These objects have shapes that explicitly recall those of ancient torture instruments, historical antecedents – less proudly displayed than the countless artistic objects – preserved in many museums and historical sites in Tuscany. The work naturally involves the active participation of the spectators, "accomplices" in the activation of power itself, thus ready to "use" these objects, but also its opposite, the passive consumption of the actions unfolding in a video, to underline the ambiguity and multiplicity of aspects that power contains within itself.

Thus, while Tania herself, lying on a small table, continued for a long time to fill vials with her own saliva, and from a distance one could see milk running down from the hair of a girl leaning out of a window in a secluded tower, the "spectators" were invited to become active participants in this performance by wearing these torture objects, made symbolic and precious by the material and the craftsmanship used."

Roberto Pinto and Gilda Williams, Arte all’Arte V, 2000