Marc Quinn. Deformity

YBA, Marc Quinn dissolves the bodies logic in work that examines the nature as stranger- than- fiction, and distortions of the artists self, of underexamined disability and provocativeness among members of celebrity. The long time rampant, Kate Moss, has proved subject in multiplicity . "There is fear and fascination, the body (of the ego) and the (sexual) object are completely absorbed in it1."

Drawing from the mythological, the works present the uncanny, the borderline, "passable in both directions by pleasure and pain2".

Marc Quinn is notorious for a bust constructed from his own frozen blood.

1. Julia Kristeva, "Something to be Scared Of", in Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection(New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 45
2. Julia Kristeva, "From Filth to Defilement" in Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection(New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 61

WIN $10,000

For those of you who have made work for the recent assessment that falls into the competition criteria - LISTEN UP:

Call for entries: 1 May - 14 August 2009  Woollahra Small Sculpture  2009 Prize

http://sculptureprize.woollahra.nsw.gov.au/home

AMAZING! Miniature sculptures.

Willard Wigan

Willard Wigan is my new hero! I was at the pub last night and one of my (boring science) friends told me about this artist who makes TRUELY small sculpture. Wigam makes artworks that sell for six figures a pop and most of it has to be viewed through a microscope. Not only does he sculpt from grains of sand but he also paints them with the hairs from flies!

Please look at the footage. You won't believe your eyes.

LOOK AT THIS FIRST!!!!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYOfoqWUZUw

http://www.willard-wigan.com/

Art & Deformation

Kiki Smith

KiKi Smith is an American artist from New York who began sculpting in the late 1970s. Her art focuses on the body yet permeates political significance, for although associated with feminism she is also known to accentuate issues such as aids, race and violence within her work.
Exposing the inner biological system as a depiction of concealed social issues, Smith’s earlier works explored the body's forms and functions whilst focusing on concepts such as birth, regeneration, and sustenance that are reoccurring motifs in her art.

"Born"2002

Kiki's bronze sculpture "Born" moves beyond the body to address the issue of man versus nature and the conjecture of regeneration. As the dear traditionally represents renewal and rebirth in some European cultures, contemporary society find the work confronting and unnatural. The classical material of bronze juxtaposed with the subject, a representation of a small deer giving birth to a life size women generates and exacerbates expectations.

“Getting the bird out” is another bronze sculpture that generated from a dream Kiki had about mouth emissions. The severed head is a replica of the artists that has been diminished two sizes smaller. A rope is attached from a bronze bird corpse to the mouth of the head. The concept behind the work is that of restoration of the soul and spirits inhabiting the body.

Untitled 1988 is a photograph taken by Smith before she broke into sculpture. The image of a woman biting her arm in an attempt of self mutilation is equally compelling as it is shocking. The use of lighting within the piece contrasts the subject as the soft blues and deep shadows give an ethereal feel, adding to the dual aspects of vulnerability and strength.

The deformation of the body is both compelling and confronting, when Kiki was asked why she based her art on the human body she replied
“I chose it as a subject because it’s the one thing we all share.”

Art & Deformation - Eva Hesse

Eva Hesse, Several (1965)

Papier-maché, acrylic, over rubber hose, 7' long

Having read the chapter on art and deformation, it seemed that much of the work discussed dealt with the abject. Several is a work by Eva Hesse (OH&S poster child), who is one of my favourite minimalist sculptors. Several, which is made of papier-mache and acrylic paint layered over rubber hose, touches on the themes of deformation and the abject, with a simplicity and subtlety that is perhaps more effective than some more "outspoken" works. Hesse had a knack for for infusing minimalism with a human element that was never sentimental or mawkish. It's humorous but it's not trivial. It's simple but not simplistic. I think the title is quite perfect.

Art and Deformation: Magdalena Abakanowicz

2002

1990

I found the work of Magdalena Abakanowicz who is included in the chapter in art and today fascinating, especially how over the years her figures have evolved to become more human like and familiar. Heartney says "their apparent inhumanity has become leavened with a sense of vulnerablility". I just thought it was interesting how as the figures have gradually become more human-like the audience has begun to feel sorry for them and recognise vulnerablitlty instead of dislike and fear. i guess its the old "fear of the unknown".

http://www.abakanowicz.art.pl/

Art & Deformation. Stelarc

Im not sure if any of you saw stelarc on the news a few weeks back but he was something of a mad scientist, talking about his third ear which he has had surgically grafted onto his arm. Which he confirmed with a cackling laugh and frizzy (i've just be zapped by electricity) hair. A great character and one of my favorite artists. nether the less. His Third Ear i thought was a perfect example of Defomation of the human body. espeshally because he is trying to get it to become a working extremity(mad i told you). no matter which way you look at it i think its marvellous and fits right into this topic. the implant he had made is disolvable and gets slowly replaced by skin as the body breaks it down around the shape of the implant. pretty mad stuff.

Art, nature, technology and one thousand trees

Eleanor Heartney, in Art, Nature and Technology - Art and Today, refers to the artist Natalie Jeremijenko and the ways in which she utilizes her knowledge of science to create aesthetically pleasing yet puzzling works of art.  Jeremijenko's works are the coalescene of art and ecology, her artistic practice is based around the notion of "creating interfaces that draw people into the environment and get them to reimagine collective action."[1] 

French Phenomenological Philosoper Maurice Merleau-ponty writes that "the relationship between things or between the aspects of things [are] being always mediated by our bodies, the whole of nature is the mise en scéne (production) of our own life.."[2]. Much like Heidegger he discusses ideas that the body - the being, is constantly interconnected with the external world and that our perception plays an important role in our understanding and engagment with the world. 

Like nature and life, art is the manifestation of grand organization of processes and transformations in time. Technology and science has come exhaustingly far in the past 20 years, and with it our understanding of nature and the world of which we inhabit. Jeremijenko's works play heavily on our perception of science, nature and technology and relationship they have with each other and us - as bodies, people, society.

Natalie Jeremijenko, One Trees, 2000

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/one-trees/images/3/

Her work One Trees (2000) involves the cloning and distribution of 1000 trees throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, the work is set to exemplify what we do - or don't know, about genetic engeneering. The work is a public project and Jeremijenko actively encourages people to participate in the documentation of the natural differences that occur in the 'identical' trees as they grow. 

Natalie Jeremijenko, One Trees, 2000
Location Castro Valley, San Francisco 

In this work she delineates the complexities of genetics' and their interaction with environmental influences, presenting the experiment and results as a public work and survey for debate regarding these current issues.

Sorry the images are poor - troubles, troubles and the internet that evades me. 

Also this is a link to her X Clinic - The Environmental health Clinic and Lab. 

http://www.environmentalhealthclinic.net 

[1] Berger, Kevin."The artist as mad scientist"( 2006) http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2006/06/22/natalie/

[2] Benthal, Jonathan. Science and Technology in Art Today: Art and Ecology. Norwich: Thames and Hudson, 1972. - secondary reference.

Art and Deformation – Jake and Dinos Chapman

Jake and Dinos Chapman, are brothers who’ve worked together since they graduated, using deformation to explore issues of contemporary politics, religion and morality. The Chapman brothers have often used plastic models or fibreglass mannequins of people. They are draftsman, engravers, model-makers and wood carvers. They carry out an ‘anatomical and pornographic grotesque’ theme, using black humour. Hell (1999-2000) is an enormous photo in the shape of a swastika with over five thousand miniature Nazi figures acting the roles of victims and executioners in a scene of death and destruction.

A performance by Germaine Greer

I remember reading a chapter from The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer about a performance she did symbolising feminist perspective. The Female Eunuch argues that women do not realise how much men hate them, and how much they are taught to hate themselves. Greer is a famous Australian feminist and an academic who placed her vagina on display for anyone to come and observe. She did this (in very basic terms) to make a point that a vagina isn’t a mysterious, sexy, playboy toy for men to use but an ordinary body part like any other. Greer has made her vagina a strangely distorted figural sculpture. This doesn’t make men horny, for them this performance was grotesque, carnivalesque, a site of abjection and informe. Greer said, "Women have somehow been separated from their libido, from their faculty of desire, from their sexuality. They've become suspicious about it. Like beasts, for example, who are castrated in farming in order to serve their master's ulterior motives — to be fattened or made docile — women have been cut off from their capacity for action. It's a process that sacrifices vigour for delicacy and succulence, and one that's got to be changed."

Art & Deformation - Hans Bellmer

Hans Bellmer, was a German born French surrealist. He made hundreds of photographed dolls made in the early 1930's as part of a protest against Germany's Nazi regime, and in part out of an expression of erotic feelings. Eleanor Hearney says Bellmer "Manipulated life-sized pubescent dolls... disremembered, fragmented and sexualised images of the females body". Represented by mutated forms and unconventional poses, his dolls were directed specifically at the cult of the perfect body then prominent in Germany, as seen in the images below. I consider “La Poupee” (Doll) extremely relevant when discussing deformation as it has an impressive aesthetic lineage and contains a perverse nature.

Hans Bellmer,

La Poupee (Doll),

1935; Paris

Art & Deformation: MARINA ABRAMOVIC

 

Abramovic, Marina. Rythm 10(1973). Performance 1 hour. Performed at the Edinburgh Festival. Image reproduced from blog, http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/assets/img/data/69/bild.jpg (accessed May 25, 2009).

 

 

Abramovic, Marina. Rhythm 0, 1974. Performance/mixed media, various dimensions. Performed 

at Studio Morra, Naples. Reproduced from Art Art Art Gallery, 

http://www.artartartgallery.com/newsitefive/files/u1/LIVE%20ART%20IMAGES/Women%20in%20Performance%20image%201%20Rythmn%200.jpg

(accessed May 19, 2009).

 

Abramovic, Marina. Thomas lips, 1975. Performance/mixed media, various dimensions.

Performed at Krinzinger Gallery 1975 and again at the Guggenheim (New York) in 2005. 

Reproduced from Seven Easy Pieces, http://www.seveneasypieces.com/images/545_MA-

Thomas_Lips.jpg (Accessed May 19, 2009).

 

There are many artworks and artists that could come under the topic “Art and Deformation”. Deformation could refer to deformation of culture, of the physical environment, of the body, of an artwork, deformation of an object and many more things.

 I have chosen to focus on the artist Marina Abramovic for this topic. I immediately thought of her after I’d chosen the topic although I didn’t know much about her. It has been interesting reading about her.

Marina Abramovic is a performance artist. Her work is often very confronting and involves using her body as an art form.  She attempts to unite the spirit with the body, testing herself mentally and physically. She often puts herself through immense pain in order to do this. Which is in a sense deformation of the body as well as of cultural and social norms.

Abramovic was born into the generation of artists which felt, after world war two, that art needed to be moved closer to life. After the immense struggle people had gone through it seemed wrong to flounder around with representation and simulation and artists wanted to put themselves on the line instead. This generation thought that somehow absorbing life into art, or merging the two, might "restore the sanity that modernism was seen a having lost"*. 

Abramovic uses her own physical pain in her work as a metaphor for pain (emotional and physical) in society & the world. When viewing her work the audience is confronted by suffering which, if looked at in a broader sense, is similar to suffering which occurs in the world we live in on a daily basis. We are forced to question our core values and beliefs as well as issues such as politics, sexism, culture, religion, war and violence.

*Thomas McEvilley. The Triumph of Anti-Art: Conceptual and Performance Art in the Formation of Post Modernism. (New York: McPherson & Company Publishers), 313.

(Sorry about the text I couldn't get rid of the underlining etc it is very annoying!)

Art & Deformation - Magdalena Abakanowicz

Agora, 2005-2006

Osiol

Magdalena Abakanowicz uses deformation in her sculptural works to convey feelings of alienation that she experienced as a child. She creates figures from materials such as bronze, burlap and more recently iron, fragmented and distorted they almost look like mummified bodies. Some are headless or missing limbs , even merged with animals, for example her work 'Osiol' merges a human figure with a distorted, featureless donkey head. It is clear then that her work involves and focuses on the deformation of the human body.

images from: http://www.abakanowicz.art.pl/

Art & Deformation – Paul McCarthy

Cakebox (detail, from Caribbean Pirates), 2001—2005

In collaboration with Damon McCarthy

Installation view, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2005

 

Jack, 2002

Silicone (Dildo), wood and steel 

This prankster artist, makes art that is confronting and sometimes uncomfortable to view. His artworks bulldoze the senses (and the stomach), and take the form of mostly sculpture and video.  He explores the human body and its limitations with a crude corruption and deformation. Some of his artworks are the visual equivalent of a bloodied bullet wound. Even though I find some of his artworks make me feel rather queasy, this queasiness has a powerful effect that forces you to remember the artwork; and remember that we are so fragile.