To save the beasts

The article revisits Wagner Schwartz’s performance La Bête, eight years after the controversy it sparked in 2017, analyzing its formal procedures in the light of the critical reception accumulated during the period, as well as taking into account the artist’s autobiographical novel written and published in 2023. Throughout the critical analysis, it will be revealed how its three basic procedures – interruption, suspension and transformation – can serve as models for reflecting on the country’s socio-political conflicts, but also on the status of contemporary art itself in the face of current impasses.