AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

In 2022, the Arizona State University (ASU) Art Museum acquired Insignia III, an artifact created during a performance by Afro-Latinx artist Carlos Martiel (b. 1989 in Havana, Cuba). The piece consists of a hand-made flag of Mexico, in which the traditionally green area is black, and the traditionally red area is painted with human blood.

Martiel’s artistic practice uses body and earthly substances, such as water, soil, blood, and stone to explore issues of race, isolation, and injustice. Over the years, he has presented scores of performances that have tested his body’s ability to endure pain, deprivation, and physical strength, and during the course of the performance reduced his existence to his biological need to survive. More recently, Martiel has focused his work on the pain and experiences that black bodies have experienced in the U.S. and Mexico, in a body of work that he calls ‘cuerpo’ or ‘body’. Each performance in the Insignia series utilizes the blood of a different persecuted group and produces the U.S. or Mexico flag stained red, black, and white. Insignia III utilizes the blood of Afro-Mexicans who self-identify as queer and refers to the suffering of black people in Mexico who are made to feel invisible.

Upon acquisition, it was apparent that the blood on Insignia III was actively flaking, and due to the young age of the piece (2021) and absence of any detail about the blood or donor, it was considered a biohazard by ASU Health & Safety. In anticipation of loan and display, it was deemed necessary to consolidate the friable blood, and the Museum hired Balboa Art Conservation Center to undertake the treatment. Following tests on mock-ups made with pig’s blood, textile conservator Annabelle Camp consolidated the blood using an ultrasonic adhesive mist and mounted the textile for display.

This presentation will address the ethics of owning and displaying a living human’s blood (with or without their input/approval), the health and safety considerations of working with contemporary pieces that include fresh blood, and the questions that have been raised regarding the acquisition and display of objects used or produced during performance art. The authors will outline the conservation treatment of unbound blood used as paint and the process of developing protocols for handling and storing artifacts with fresh blood in conjunction with the ASU Health & Safety specialists.