What's a 31-year-old skinny Jewish photographer/teacher from Louisville doing running around in red undies, pouring chocolate sauce all over himself and calling it performance art? That's easy, says Marc Tasman. He's the Chocolate Messiah, but admirers just call him "Choco."
In fact, Tasman's likeness to the more generally accepted messiah (without all the chocolate, of course) is no mere coincidence. When he had long hair in college and worked in a bingo hall, people used to call him the "Bingo Jesus."
"Remarkably, I looked exactly like all the Italian Renaissance Jesuses," he says. "In fact, my mother tells me I was due on Christmas, but I was born on Dec. 17."
So it wasn't a stretch of the imagination a few years back when his brother told him about the Shroud of Turin, and the photographer in Tasman had an idea. "I thought it would be great to make some sort of full body impression with photo chemicals, but I never did it because I thought I might burn some sensitive parts. But then I thought, I'm gonna do it -- with chocolate."
{INSERT_RELATED}Chocolate? "I thought it would be quite a spectacle, and I might as well have an audience. But I needed a good story."
The story he developed was based around the creation of a fictitious cult leader. The performance artist with the self-deprecating sense of humor took it a step further and devised his story. The "Chocolate Messiah" was coming back and had recently authored several made-up novels, like "Heal Yourself With Chocolate." It all made perfect sense, at least to Tasman.
"This was all around the time of the millennium, when people were freaking out about Y2K," says Tasman. The chocolate part was somewhat coincidental, though his father worked in the chocolate industry, and admittedly, Tasman liked chocolate.
The final product is one part theater, one part exhibitionist and even one part Kaballah (Jewish mysticism, which is all the rage these days with celebrities like Madonna). For his first performance in February 2000, Tasman plastered the campus of Ohio State University, where he was attending graduate school, with cryptic flyers. He didn't really get permission for his "coming out," but nonetheless, 70-100 students showed up to witness the spectacle.
"I told the story as the second coming of the Chocolate Messiah, even though there was no first coming. I came down the elevator, and the doors opened. My two 'high priestesses' laid out the shroud and handed out chocolate. 'Choco,' who speaks with a slightly Indian and Russian accent, greeted the crowd. And I was amazed, because people were laughing."
His assistants wrapped the chocolate-covered Tasman in a wet shroud -- "I wanted to make a good impression," he says. His spiel went off basically without a hitch, until he slipped off the dolly on the way back into the elevator. Nonetheless, he was loaded back into the elevator, it ascended upwards, then returned to the crowd. When the door opened, the only thing on the floor was the pair of red underpants. Thus a legend was born.
Tasman has since performed his shtick in Chicago and now in Milwaukee, where he teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He brought out Choco most recently at a benefit for "Beauty" salon last April. He says 300 people witnessed his act, called "Simultaneous Chocolization." His wife doesn't claim to understand it all, but respects Tasman's art.
Of course, Choco has a Web site. His exploits were even covered in Canada's largest newspaper, which picked up his piece from an article written about his Columbus performance.
Choco will make his next appearance in the spring, Tasman says. "But he usually comes out in festivals where chocolate is involved, like Chanukah, Halloween, Easter."
His other art, which involves a project in which Tasman takes at least one Polaroid of himself daily, will be displayed Nov 15-16 at the Walker's Point Center of the Arts.
For a fairly normal guy, Tasman understands that his art is a little out there. On the other hand, it's about chocolate and love, which is perhaps why no one is crying blasphemy.
For more on Choco, visit his Web site at: www.come.to/chocolatemessiah.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
