CUM (Laocoön and Saint Teresa)
Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa meets the graeco-roman sculpture Laocoön. The left half of the face, an expression of extreme pleasure, or a last breath, meets the second half, which had been defined as the most extreme expression of pain in Western art. Juxtaposed against such androgynous image, a word (Latin and English cum) refers both to the union of opposites, and the final moment of the sexual act.