Suzanne Lacy, with Photos by Raul Vega (Los Angeles, 1976)

This performance was not performed for a live audience but was created for video and as a photographic series. Lacy, with a lamb carcass splayed on a chopping block in a beautifully crafted kitchen, goes through a serious of transformations, beginning as a television cook illustrating the parts of the lamb: “Innumerable housewives buy lamb year after year, often spending hundreds of dollars…Taking the time to learn where the meat comes from will ensure your constant success…If you’re willing to make yourself utterly ridiculous, you can learn the different cuts in just few minutes.”

As the voice-over monologue progresses, Lacy, false teeth on top of her own, resembles a lamb head with its skin peeled back. “Here’s what you do: get down on all fours and imagine you are a lamb. Try to imitate the movements a lamb would make and notice which muscles you use. Imagine you are a curious animal, often turning, lowering and raising your head…”

Again a metamorphosis, and this time Lacy’s teeth are plastic vampire versions of a carnivorous animal. Wrestling the carcass across the chopping block and onto the floor, the monologue continues: “Finally, move your tongue as in chewing, baaa-ing, or screaming: this can be baked, boiled, or pickled, and in lambs is a real delicacy:” (Text, thanks to Adele Davis, Julia Childs, and Jack La Lane).