João Onofre

Box sized Die featuring Darkmoon is a live performance of a Death Metal band with a sculpture.

In this work Onofre takes the form of one of Toni Smith’s most fundamental structures, his six-foot metal cube from 1962 titled: Die.

By placing the four-part, Swiss Death Metal band playing inside a sound-proof reproduction of Smith’s modular cell, Onofre/the work provides a unique sensorial experience to the viewer. Unable to calculate the exact duration of each performance, which is determined by how long the band

members withstand being trapped with a limited air supply, ‘Box sized Die featuring Darkmoon, with the muffled sound that comes from its interior, raises the hidden, the unheimlich resonances of Smith’s iconical minimalist cube. As such, Onofre animates an apparently inanimate, hard-edged object, making the sculpture a palpable experience – one of entrapment and death, claustrophobia and asphyxiation.