Your Last Supper
“Your Last Supper” is a site-specific installation that took place in my kitchen overnight, after my partner of 11 years announced me abruptly, on a Tuesday night at 10pm, that he wanted to end our relationship to start a new one with someone else; someone he acknowledged he has been having an affair with for a while. I was in shock. I asked if we could talk about it, to try to make sense of what was happening, but he replied he had made up his mind and he would not consider discussing his decision.
The title refers to “The Last Supper“, Leonardo de Vinci’s mural depicting Jesus announcing Judas’ betrayal.
Like a crime scene, the piece reveals some of the conflicting emotions that collided in my brain, my heart, and my body after he murdered our relationship.
The deceptive installation is organized expressively with cynicism and disbelief, and reflects on the 5 elements of grief and loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and – hopefully at some point – acceptance.
Denial: the installation has been created during the night after our conversation, and was a gift to him. He didn’t want to talk further, and he went to bed, but I wanted to express my feelings, including those of love. I opened a bottle of champagne and got to work.
Anger: the starting point of the piece was the sharp kitchen knife that I planted in a zucchini, all the way through our wooden kitchen table. I added a couple of apples to make my message more evocative…and a glass of champagne for him to celebrate his achievements.
Bargaining: I placed pictures of our cat and our horse on the table, along with a ceramic artwork that I created and gave him as present. I also added a framed photos of us, from many years ago, when we were in love! A bottle of local liquor from his place of birth is also offered, as a way to beg him to consider all that we’ve built over those years. I placed one of my large abstract paintings in the background, one of his favorites.
Depression: I grabbed the burgundy sheet that was covering his piano, and placed it on the table, as a representation of my heart bleeding. I moved the piano bench in place of his chair. I dressed up his mat, plate and silverware, and served him the content of our compost pile at the time: rotting organic vegetables. I dressed it up with three cans of expensive foie gras from south of France, that he brought back from his recurring business trips there. It turned out that during the last one, he was too “busy with work” to take my calls, but what was really going on was that she (the mistress) was staying in his hotel room.
Acceptance is the intended end result. It is symbolized by my chair – on the right hand side – that is turned towards his plate at a 45 ° angle. It allows me to both listen to his departure, and eventually leave this graveyard.
