Madrid, Spain – November 22, 2025 – Performance artist Angélica Liddell delivered what many are calling her most devastating work to date, “Seppuku,” at a premiere this morning, leaving audiences profoundly unsettled. The piece, characterized by stark vulnerability and a confronting physicality, culminated in Liddell addressing the crowd with a chillingly direct statement: “You are not understanding me.”
Liddell, known for a decades-long exploration of the boundaries between art and life, and a willingness to subject her own body to extreme conditions in her performances, presented a work steeped in themes of decay and sacrifice. The performance reportedly featured Liddell appearing onstage nude, her body visibly marked by the passage of time-a intentional aesthetic choice reflecting her long-held artistic and ethical stance.This stance, she has previously articulated, centers on a complete self-implication in any act of creation or destruction, extending even to self-harm as a form of artistic completion.
Witnesses described a palpable sense of unease throughout the performance, heightened by an almost imperceptible but pervasive feeling of a disturbing presence, likened to “a very black bug from another world” – a recurring motif in Liddell’s work. The performance concluded as dawn broke on a frigid morning, intensifying the discomfort and leaving a lasting impression on those present.The work’s core message, however, remains elusive to many, prompting Liddell’s final, stark pronouncement to the audience.
