Print of Sleep
- Artist: Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa
- Date: 2016
- Medium: Video, high definition, colour and sound (stereo)
- Dimensions: duration: 17min, 44sec
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Print of Sleep” by Naufus Ramírez‑Figueroa. A 17‑minute‑44‑second high‑definition video, it captures a durational performance that began at the 2016 If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want To Be Part of Your Revolution show in Amsterdam and was filmed at KunstWerke in Berlin.
The setting is a stark white room filled with bare metal‑framed beds, some double‑tiered, lit only by fluorescent tubes. Participants—clothed in plain white t‑shirts, leggings, and trousers—stand and sit beside the frames. The artist, also in white, wanders through the space accompanied by a dark‑clothed figure holding a paint palette and roller. He drapes black paint over the wire‑mesh, then places body parts or clothing on the frame to leave an imprint, sometimes supporting them with rolled towels. The performance is almost silent, the only sound coming from the brush strokes and the slow movements.
A close‑up of the bodies punctuates the action, and towards the end the artist applies paint with a spatula to a sheet‑covered frame draped over a woman. The piece ends with him removing his t‑shirt and printing his own body before the others rest.
The title echoes the beds and the act of printing, and the work echoes Gina Pane’s “The Conditioning” while steering away from extreme body‑testing. It invites us to contemplate the space between presence and absence, action and stillness.
See it in person
Print of Sleep 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.
