Life in His Mouth, Death Cradles Her Arm
- Artist: Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa
- Date: 2016
- Medium: Video, high definition, colour and sound (stereo)
- Dimensions: duration: 5min, 57sec
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Life in His Mouth, Death Cradles Her Arm” by Naufus Ramírez‑Figueroa. The work is a single‑channel video, just under six minutes long, that documents a performance in a quiet passage of the General Cemetery in Guatemala City. The artist stands motionless, holding a bundle wrapped in a shawl or shroud. As the scene shifts from night to dawn, he also holds a block of ice that slowly melts, leaving a small puddle at his feet. The footage is mostly static, with close‑ups of the dripping shawl and the artist’s face. By the end, he disappears from the frame, leaving only the setting.
The piece is a meditation on the death of Ramírez‑Figueroa’s brother and the high mortality of Guatemalan children during the civil war. He describes it as a “blanket that could weep,” a way to give shape to grief and memory. The work sits within his Requiem for Mirrors and Tigers cycle, re‑contextualised after the original 2006 performance was lost in a fire. It invites viewers to pause and reflect on personal loss and the fragility of life.
See it in person
Life in His Mouth, Death Cradles Her Arm is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
