Kasper Kovitz

Three months in Bilbao painting Conquistadores in ox blood.

There is a color that Basques used to paint their houses with, rouge Basque, that originally was made out of cattle blood. When I started working on images of the Conquistadores coming on land and encountering Natives, I decided to use ‘exotic fruit juice mix’ for the Natives. The fruit juice was so faint at first, that I had to paint them over and over again to make them visible at all. This circumstance and having to make the decision if the landscape should be painted in fruit juice or already in ox blood, of the same property as the Conquistadores, made for a strange feeling while painting them.

I also made  ‘Carnalitos’, two sculptures of Miguel de Unamuno and Sabino Arana carved of legs of jamon iberico. The sculptures are a pair. These two Basque characters have a significant role in the Basque independence struggle but stood on two opposing political sides: moderation and nationalism. Carnalitos is an expression in Spanish for close friends as in “of the same blood”.

Parime [galleons]
oxblood on paper
31 3/16″ x 23 1/4″, 79.5 x 59cm
2010

Parime [Ponce de Leon]
oxblood on paper
29 5/8″ x 22 11/16″, 75.2 x 57.6cm
2010

Parime [Amerikanuak]
oxblood on ‘exotic fruitjuice mix’ on paper
30 5/8″ x 22 7/16″, 77.8 x 57cm
2010Parime [de Soto]
oxblood on ‘exotic fruitjuice mix’ on paper
30 1/8″ x 22 11/16″, 76.8 x 57.6cm
2010Parime [akelarre]
oxblood on ‘exotic fruitjuice mix’ on paper
21 1/4″ x 14 9/16″, 54 x 37cm
2010Carnalitos [Arana]
jamon iberico, concrete
12 3/16″ x 18 1/2″ x 11 7/16″, 31 x 47 x 29cm
2010Carnalitos [Arana] leftCarnalitos [Arana] closeCarnalitos [Unamuno]
jamon iberico, concrete
11 7/16″ x 19 5/8″ x 11 7/16″, 29 x 50 x 29cm
2010

Carnalitos [Unamuno] backCarnalitos [Unamuno] close

Made possible through a workshop grant  from BilbaoARTE and individual grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Bundesministerium fuer Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur. Thank you for the support.

Pecher; pine sap on paper; 2009; 11 1/14″ x 17 5/8″

sap cabins; pine sap on paper; 2008; 26 1/2″ x 19 3/4″

Heimsuche [Das Red River Thal]; pine sap on paper; 2007; 39 3/4” x 26”

small sap; pine sap on paper; 2009; 9 1/2″ x 12 3/8″

fox and pine; fox urine and pine sap; 2009; 18 1/2″ x 12 3/4″

Foxes; fox urine; 2008; 9 1/2″ x 12 3/8″

Bob; bobcat urine on paper; 2009; 11 3/4″ x 8 1/4″

no title; coyote urine; 2008; 9 1/2″ x12 3/8″

untitled [map], 2009, painted plywood, lacquer, 30 1/8″ x 35 1/4″, 76.5×89.5cm

lead pour, Malibu