{"id":106,"date":"2023-06-11T20:10:50","date_gmt":"2023-06-11T20:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rmrm.info\/web\/?post_type=works&p=106"},"modified":"2026-10-10T08:37:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T08:37:41","slug":"bloodsuckers","status":"publish","type":"works","link":"https:\/\/rmrm.info\/web\/works\/bloodsuckers\/","title":{"rendered":"Bloodsuckers"},"content":{"rendered":"

PUPPET POET BLOODSUCKER, by Eileen Myles 2022<\/a><\/p>\n

Daniel Merrit on RM Marco Pezzotta, Bianca Benenti (fka Real Madrid), Bloodsuckers<\/em>,
\nSwiss Institute New York City, 2022<\/p>\n

Bloodsuckers is a restless nocturne by collective Real Madrid. The exhibition, their first in the United States, showcases a new body of work that expands on the tribulations of dealing with bed bugs. Founded in Geneva in 2015, Real Madrid stages exhibitions in which hand-crafted objects mingle with readymade commercial products to foreground intimate experiences within larger social networks. The collective, whose appropriated name is a knock-off of the ubiquitous Spanish soccer franchise, works through the ways in which sexuality, illness, fears and attachments are perceived and narrated across time by dominant culture, prompting opportunities for refreshed understandings and camaraderie. Bloodsuckers builds upon the artists\u2019 sustained engagement with the uneasy processes of navigating disease, stigma and shame by shifting from considerations of interpersonal transmission to something more parasitic.
\nAcross centuries, from department stores to subway benches to movies theaters, bed bugs have thrived, forcing entry into the most private of spaces. In Bloodsuckers, Real Madrid invokes these pests and the phobias precipitated by their infestation as catalysts for digressions on hospitality and the dynamics between guests and hosts. Nightly, human bodies serve as oblivious feasts for their unwanted bedmates. Barely visible but all-consuming, the parasites infiltrate body and mind in a way that can never be fully absolved, as the residue of their presence persists beyond extermination. In the words of Real Madrid, Bloodsuckers is an attempt to scratch the \u201cpsychosomatic itch so hard to exorcise.\u201d
\nIn the gallery, a garment conveyor cycles incessantly and generates a metallic rhythm. The numerals of a digital clock pass along this nervous circuit, an horological kopfkino. Three bedbugs, carved from wood, take form here as playground equipment, perched on spring coils. Varied in size, awkward and barbed with grips and handles, these parasites appear unable to accommodate riders. On the wall, silhouettes of fidgety bodies rendered in hand-made crochet reveal themselves within the fabric of rumpled bed sheets and pillowcases, evincing a night without sleep. These cut-outs, soft scabs, allude to bites and to healing.
\nIn \u201cPuppet, Poet, Bloodsucker,\u201d a new text written on the occasion of the exhibition, Eileen Myles asks \u201cWho are the bloodsuckers right now at this moment in 2022 in New York?\u201d In conversation and song, Myles and their five puppets . Bedelia, Montgomery, Oscar, Casper and Crocky\u2014discuss the answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":319,"template":"","class_list":["post-106","works","type-works","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrm.info\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/works\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrm.info\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/works"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrm.info\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/works"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrm.info\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrm.info\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}