Marco Gobbi

Breadication: the moment of breaking and eating the bread shadows at 5pm o’clock, same hour in which the shadows were taken in Venice.

The starting point for Meridians is a Venetian folk tale of a baker who found an empty but costly scabbard in the street. He picked it up and made his way to deliver his freshly baked bread. Then he stumbled on the body of a man with a sword stuck in his breast – and the sword fitted in the scabbard. The baker’s guilt was quickly deemed certain and he was condemned to death. No sooner had the execution taken place, the real murderer was identified and the baker was exonerated. Now he lives on as one of the sculptures on St. Mark’s Basilica gazing down on the place of his execution. The shadows cast at 5 o’clock in the afternoon sun by these statues on the Piazza San Marco are used by Gobbi to emphasize with the baker, and to commemorate him in a ritual of daily baked sculptures of bread.