SEMEFO, Untitled, 1997, installation of 7 cans used for boiling cadavers. Collection Galería Art and Idea, Mexico City.
In 1997 both the Viennese Actionists and the Mexican art collective SEMEFO (active between 1990-1999) were compared and contrasted in an exhibition Accionismo (Actionism) organized by Art & Idea in their gallery space in Mexico City. This exhibition featured the work of Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler, as well as an installation by SEMEFO. The latter presented the installation Untitled (1997), [pictured above] a biomedical sculpture that consisted of eight repurposed oil-drums placed across the gallery floor. These had been burned—they were covered with soot on the outside—and had a viscous coat of a fatty substance encrusted on their inner walls. According to artist and former SEMEFO member Juan Zavaleta, these drums had been used repeatedly to effectively cook and strip the flesh off bones from corpses that had been used for teaching medical students about anatomy and physiology. These bones would be used for further analysis of hard tissues in our bodies. The source of the cadavers were unknown victims of violence, and SEMEFO, through the gesture of exhibiting these drums, showed how the unclaimed bodies of narco killings—deemed valueless—would be further broken down and disappeared in horrifying yet discreet ways. The drums were acquired through a paid anonymous agent who worked at the Forensic Medical Service, and who sold them the collective. This unlawful appropriation of human remains would be a trademark of both SEMEFO’s sculptural works often sourced from clandestine or underground transactions.
