Nupta Cadavera

Nupta Cadavera is a three day intervention in Andrew Norman Wilson’s solo exhibition Hirngespenster in which anorak will remove elements of the show and replace them with moving image work by, amongst others, Bonnie Camplin, and a new piece for modified portative organ which composer James Rushford will perform live on the first evening.

‘Nupta Cadavera’ (Lat. the corpse bride) is the title of Rushford’s piece and a medieval torture practice in which two bodies were tied together, one dead, one alive, face to face. Slowly, decay would spread and join the two – a consummation of marriage on a vermicular level that can’t be undone.

Anorak takes this motif to project into a longing for absolute connectivity – the perversion of the true romantic, in which the dichotomy between body and soul, vitality and mortality collapses. In a way, the bodies in this show exceed themselves. They flirt, they split, divide themselves, morph into monstrosities or pretend to be asleep. In a macabre dance, they deprive heaven of its bliss for the benefits of corporeality, if only for a brief moment.

Photos by Florian Model & Jan Nicola Angermann