Marco Evaristti

Marco Evaristti(born 1963) is aChileanartistwho has lived inDenmarksince the 1980s.While a trained and practicing architect, he is best known for hosting a dinner party where the main course wasagnolottipasta that was topped with a meatball made with his own fat, removed earlier in the year in aliposuctionoperation.
Though raised a Catholic, in his teenage years Evaristti found out he was born to a Jewish mother, which some account for the philosophical and religious themes in his work.Evaristti holds a master's degree inarchitecturefrom theRoyal Danish Academy of Fine Artswhere he was a student of architectHenning Larsen. Through the years, he has continued working on private architectural projects as well as larger commission projects.
His architecture works contain a blend of Scandinavian, Asian and Latin American approaches. He travels to other countries and embellishes the natural environment with coloured dye as part of an ongoing project he calls "Pink State".Evaristti sometimes uses materials taken from nature, such asdiamonds,gold,semenandblood, to create apsychologicalreaction in the viewer.
Evaristti describes Pink State as his own independent state, a state of mind withpassportandconstitution, but without government control. Although imaginary, he will materialize it from time to time in his transitory landscape works. Pink State is Evaristti's, but without controlled or controlling borders. Manifestations of Pink State have included 2004's The Ice Cube Project offGreenland, 2007's attempted painting of the summit ofMont Blanc(The Mont Rouge Project) in France, and 2008's Arido Rosso Project in theSahara. All these projects, at their core, deal with issues of territorial power and brotherhood.
In 1995, Evaristti was a visiting professor inBangkokat theSilipakorn Fine Arts University. While in Bangkok, he witnessed over thirty road casualties every day, and accompanied investigators to several accidents. Here he acquired blood and other materials from some of the scenes, and used them with ink to paint on canvases. In this way, he was trying to create an image of what disaster might look like. The most important element was the use of real blood. Evaristti quotedPicassothat art is a representation of reality expressed through a lie. However, in these paintings the blood is real and thus not a lie. He titled the piece "Crash".
After studying at theRoyal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Evaristti gained notoriety for amuseumdisplay entitledHelenain 2000 that featured ten functionalblenderscontaining livegoldfish. The display, at theTrapholt Art Museumin Kolding,Denmark, invited guests to turn on the blenders. This led to museum director Peter Meyers being charged with and, later,acquittedofanimal cruelty.
In 2001, Evaristti worked on his project "Terrorialista", which is a silver-patinabronzesculpture made up of twenty-eight parts that together form a complete human body. The pieces are all based on photographic images of human bodies that were blown apart by acts ofterrorby both sides of the conflict. The allegiances, gender, nationality, religion and every other feature that had identified the people in those photographs was now eradicated. Parts of this work are further explained in the Pink State.
Evaristti's next major work, in 2004, entitledIce Cube Project, was to paint the exposed tip of a smallicebergred. This took place on March 24, in Kangiafjordnear Ilullissat,Greenland. With twoicebreakersand a twenty-man crew, Evaristti used threefire hosesand 3,000 litres (790 US gallons) of paint to color the iceberg blood-red.  The artist commented that, "We all have a need to decorate Mother Nature because it belongs to all of us."
On January 13, 2007, Evaristti hosted a dinner party where the main course wasagnolottipasta that was topped with a meatballmade with his own fat, removed earlier in the year in aliposuctionoperation.
On June 8, 2007, Evaristti draped the peak ofMont BlancinFrancewith red fabric, along with a 20-foot pole with a flag reading "Pink State". He had been arrested and detained on June 6 for attempting to paint the peak red. He has stated that his aim is to raise awareness ofenvironmental degradation.
In 2009, Evaristti exhibited his "Body Bags" project. This consisted of threebody bagscast in bronze, each in a different color, to symbolize the three mainmonotheistic religions. He claimed the body bags were like the modern-day image of the skull and reminded people how fragile human life was. By making each resemble a different religion, he was trying to enforce the idea that no matter what ideas you believe in, your life will still end in death.
On January 27, 2010, Evaristti exhibited his artwork "Rolexgate" which is a model of the entrance gate to theAuschwitz-Birkenauconcentration camp. 80% of the model is made up of gold which comes from the teeth of Jews who died in the concentration camps. The model had been briefly exhibited inBerlin, but was removed because of the audience reaction.
In 2010, Evaristti created his "Boxing Bag" project, in which he replacedboxing bags' sand stuffing with hair cut fromChristians,Jews, andMuslims. He invited viewers to nudge certain bags aside to get through the pathway. He suggested that a viewer who hit certain bags had avendettaagainst that religion.
In March 2013, Evaristti painted a frozen waterfall inHovden, Aust-Agder,Norwayred with fruit juice.
In November 2022, Evaristti had his first solo show in Thailand at West Eden in conjunction with a concurrent show in Copenhagen with Galleri Christoffer Egelund.