Marcello Nocera's Santa Muerte Altar Photographed in Cagliari

Marcello Nocera (born 1980 in Cagliari) presents a photographic series and three large lightboxes documenting a Santa Muerte altar, created after a trip to Mexico for the Day of the Dead. The cult of Santa Muerte, a pre-Columbian deity whose worship has spread dramatically since 2000, is often associated with narcos and marginalized groups, and is opposed by the Catholic Church. Nocera reconstructs one of her altars, featuring offerings of fruit, cigarettes, alcohol, and sweets among candles and ex-votos, centered on a crowned skeleton figure dressed as a Madonna with a mantle whose colors signify different powers: red for love and sex, green for prison and drugs, yellow for money and power, black for bloodshed, and white for spiritual rebirth. The black-and-white photographs focus on painted faces or infernal masks, with elusive gazes and figures dissolving in light, showing children mimicking death and adults carrying the fetish in a blend of pagan rituals, faint flames, and burning incense. The exhibition is held at Fondazione Bartoli Felter in Cagliari.