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Jory L. BertramLines Upon Lines (2016)
Extreme anxiety can lead to hallucinations. In the case of 16 year-old French artist Jory L. Bertram, the hallucinations took the form of thousands of lacerations all over her body. This piece is an attempt to convey those experiences.
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Fábio Magalhãesvarious (2011 - 2014)
Salvadorian artist Fábio Magalhães paints inconceivable acts and positions in a truly gruesome yet astonishing manner. In which, he creates contours of a very disturbing reality. His hyper-realistic rendering and conditions, metaphorically connects images of his own body, feelings and banal situations.
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HalFlesh Love (Vacuum sealed Couples) (2007)
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Adam Brandjes Animatronic Flesh Shoe (2004)
The shoe is stitched together with multiple pieces of latex rubber cast out of molds made from my own skin. The shoe's toe and heel raise and lower as it occasionally vibrates/pulsates, and twitches on the floor as if it were still alive. The movement is not constant, and usually causes people to jump back while they are in the middle of leaning in for a closer look.
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Shen ShaominSummit (2010)
Summit comprised life-sized hyperrealistic sculptures of deceased communist leaders on their deathbeds (or in Fidel Castro’s case, clinging to life).
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Adriana Varejãovarious (2007 - 2015)
Adriana Varejão, (born in Río de Janeiro in 1964) has -for more than two decades- engaged in an aesthetic discourse that has delved fearlessly into controversial topics such as European Colonialism in Brazil, human slavery, and the body as a mediator for history’s untold violence. Varejão’s work evidences material as well as historical concerns; her paintings, drawings, and sculptures are physical and often, confrontational objects.
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Andra UrsutaCrush (2011)
Cast Urethane, wax, sneakers, wig, silicone, 152 x 102 x 23 cm
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Gina Panevarious (1974 - 1983)
Gina Pane (1939 – 1990), a French artist of an Italian origin, was one of the main representatives of what is widely recognised as Body Art, the artistic trend characterised by the practise of self-mutilation and sadomasochism. Working with/on her own flesh and blood as an artistic media, Pane laid bare the human body’s fragilities; undressing, hitting, hurting, dirtying her own body, she was able to show the sense of danger and pain. Gina Pane, with a distinctive composure and a rational attitude, used the sufferance as a way of representing spirituality, carrying a deep emotional and symbolic charge. In Sentimental action (1973), the proto feminist artist, dressed totally in white, takes a bunch of roses in her hand and hurts herself with their spines. The blood dripping on the bouquet turns the roses from white to red. At that point, the artist cuts herself with a razor blade. An even higher pathos is represented by Action Psyché (Essai), a performance from 1974 – documented by sketches, photographs, notes – where Gina Pane injures her eyelashes to simulate tears of blood, and then engraves her belly. Some prim viewers could be disarmed and shocked by the narcissism, aggressiveness and exhibitionism displayed in such a rough and direct way.
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Choi Xoo AngIslets of Aspergers Type XIV (2009)
Xooang Choi's Islets of Aspergers series, each with a serial number, shows the characteristics of Asperger’s Syndrome by exaggerating and distorting a body part. These images constantly give doubtful stares to the outer world or act indifferent to everything else besides themselves.
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Regina José GalindoGoose Flesh (2012)
Regina José Galindo began her artistic evolution as a poet. It was in 1999 that she started to use her body as part of her work in a more direct manner by adopting performance as her chief medium of expression. Her work leads us into the problems of current society, into a stark reality, through the discourse of her own body and by means of a series of actions that are equally stark, unrestrained and full of symbolism and which lead the artist to place herself in extreme situations that are also intense points of reflection for spectators.
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Santiago Sierra250 cm line tattooed on six paid people (1999)
In 1999, Spanish artist Santiago Sierra paid six unemployed young men in Cuba to take part in one of his installation pieces. The men were offered $30 each to participate, and stripped to their shorts to become a part of its human experiments, this time in the Espacia Aglutinador, Havana’s oldest art space. Santiago Sierra had the men tattooed – one straight, horizontal line reaching across each of their backs. “Having a tattoo is normally a personal choice. But when you do it under ’remunerated’ conditions, this gesture becomes something that seems awful, degrading—it perfectly illustrates the tragedy of our social hierarchies. The tattoo is not the problem. The problem is the existence of social conditions that allow me to make this work. You could make this tattooed line a kilometer long, using thousands and thousands of willing people.”
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Daniel J. Martinezredemption of the flesh, its just a little bruise; the politics of the future as urgent as the blue sky (2008)
The hypnotic mechanical nihilism of a masterful Daniel J. Martinez installation, “redemption of the flesh, its just a little bruise; the politics of the future as urgent as the blue sky”, a 2008 animatronic sculpture that squirts what appears to be blood onto the walls of the museum. Behind this carnage are hand-scrawled recounts of the known plagues of history that have taken a million or more victims each.
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Cao Hui various (2011 - 2015)
Beijing-based artist Cao Hui insists that people used to be given the title of "artist" based on their "degree of mastery in imitating nature" though now, he says, "It seems artists are no longer happy just being artists, but are driven by their inborn love of performance to try out new roles, such as philosopher, scientist, doctor or perhaps even engineer. I think artists really want to play god more than anything else, and will stop at nothing to construct a truth that validates the self."
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Karen PaddingtonTaxidermy (2011)
A woman dressed in white clinician's overalls methodically flays the skin off a mannequin.
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Michael Zajkovvarious (2013)
Artist Michael Zajkov worked making puppets for a theater since 2010, after graduation from Kuban State University of Russia, who made his debut at the “Art Dolls” expo in Moscow, 2013, where he presented a few creations and attracted the attention worldwide. By using French mohair as hair and hand painted glass from Germany as eyes, Zajkov makes these extremely realistic Russian dolls dressed in exquisite costumes.
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Elmgreen & Dragset Death of a Collector (2009)
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Yang ShaobinBody (2009)
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Berlinde De Bruyckerevarious (2004 - 2015)
An unsettling, reconfigured concept of the body, helpless yet contorted, takes centre stage in Berlinde de Bruyckere’s faceless sculptures. Abject deformation is turned into beauty as if the artist is trying to wrestle a shape from abstract form. That each body, whether human or equine, stands on a plinth or inside a cabinet, as if posing for the viewer, emphasises their monumentalised objecthood and the tension between what these objects represent and what they actually are. De Bruyckere began making work around ideas of the human figure in the early 1990s, first through its absence, stacking and draping woollen blankets on furniture, symbolising shelter and vulnerability. Then she added bodies made of wax, almost completely covered in wool; imperfect, sexless and headless.
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Alex KatzBoy with Branch 2 (1975)
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Andrei Molodkinvarious (2012 - 2015)
Russian contemporary artist Andrei Molodkin is taking body art to a whole new level with a machine that boils corpses down to oil, which can then be poured into molds to become sculptures. Paris-based Molodkin says that he has tested his high-pressure invention, which in three to six months turns a corpse into “yellowish, sweet crude”. BBC reporter Sasha Gankin has already signed up, saying he wants to be turned into a sculpture of a brain, and French porn star Chloé des Lysses has asked to be made into a model of praying hands. According to Molodkin, who will represent Russia at this year’s Venice Biennale, a few HIV-positive New Yorkers who are expected to die in a year or two have agreed to the project as well.
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Tony MatelliDouble Meat Head (2008)
Tony Matelli's sculpture "Double Meat Head," a self-portrait diptych, represents the two stages of Matelli's existence — the first stage signified with live, fresh meat, the second stage signified with decay, in which the flesh decomposes, consumed by maggots.
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Isidro López-AparicioLearning How to relate (2012)
Two hundred people hanging head-down in random group sizes, as human relation close groups.
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Andrew Krasnowvarious (2001 - 2013)
The Nazis at Buchenwald concentration camp did it. And so did serial killer Ed Gein. Now, Andrew Krasnow is making sculptures and lampshades out of human skin, all in the name of art: His works include human skin lampshades – a direct response to the belief that similar items made from the skin of Holocaust victims were found at Buchenwald concentration camp. Using skins from white men who donated their bodies to medical science, he has created freak versions of mundane items including flags, boots and maps of America – in effect using skin like leather. His work, he says, is a commentary on human cruelty and America's ethics and morality.
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Marilyn MinterGreen Pink Caviar (2009)
It is difficult to tell if Marilyn Minter’s subjects are meant to make viewers uncomfortable—or turn them on. A self-proclaimed “still life art photographer,” Minter’s pornography-inspired portraits of women seemingly possessed by the voyeuristic lens all appear to be objects of her wildest hallucinations. Yet, upon closer inspection, the images reveal the simplest reality that exists in beauty: imperfection. Her camera catches, with peephole discretion, tongues and fingers intermingling with precious stones, body hair and birthday cake, rendering her subjects in a miserable yet erotic state of disarray.
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He YunchangOne Meter of Democracy (2014)
He Yunchang performance One Meter of Democracy, he had a 0.5 to 1 centimeter deep incision cut into the right side of his body, stretching one meter from his collarbone to his knee. A doctor assisted in this procedure, though no anesthesia was used during the entire process. Before the surgery, he held a satirical “Chinese democracy-style” vote, using the farcical methods of Chinese elections to ask the roughly twenty people present whether or not he should carry out the procedure. The final tally was 12 votes for, 10 against and 3 abstaining, passing by two votes. The process was shocking to watch. He used a self-abusive, self-mutilating method to push himself to the edge, near the brink of death, and attained a self-redemption of both spirit and flesh. Perhaps this is the price of democracy, and perhaps He Yunchang is using his own suffering to awaken and probe the languishing soul.
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Folkert de JongThe Dance (2008)
Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, artificial gemstones.
*
p.s. Hey. ** Jonathan, Mr. Mayhew! Howdy, sir, pal. Paris is good, I think, let me check, ... yeah, it's good. Wait, where are you? Still way up north or west-ish from here. I've lost track. (Spellcheck just corrected 'track' into 'teacake'. That's too weird not to mean something.) Solid poet reading list there, sir. Lots of creme. Peter was supposed to give me the new album, but he hasn't! I've seen him play his new part-analog stuff a few times now, and it's super exciting. I guess I'll have to buy that record. Dude, you do need to get back here, let's face it. Everything is pretty much exactly as you left it. Dude! ** Jamie McMorrow, That's funny because I just went out to smoke and there was an actual rainbow in the sky, which is pretty rare here in the big P, but yours is better because I can imagine it any way I was, and I'm imagining it's covered with glitter and undulating. Good morning! Work's getting done. The finish line might be very close now. The SF trip is kind of ridiculous. We get there on Monday afternoon and I fly back here on Friday (Zac's staying on a few days with his nearby sister). Two 11 1/2 hour flights and two 9 hour time changes in five days? And I get monster jet lag, so ... yikes. I actually don't like San Francisco very much. I never have. It doesn't please or interest me much, and I think it has a creepy vibe. But I have really good friends there, and there are some really great people who live there and who do just fine. But, yeah, SF is not my thing. Glad you the liked post and that Donald's work intrigued you. Bad sleep and dentistry in the same day? Man, my condolences. But maybe there was some pizzazz in it? How was town? Oh, cool, about the Denmark festival! What's the festival? Will you be there long enough to check the surroundings out? I like Blondie. I think they're sharp. I never really fell in love with them. I saw them live a bunch of times, and they were quite fun, especially in the early days. I prefer the early stuff when Gary Valentine was in the band for some reason. They kind of lost me around the time 'Autoamerican' came out, and I didn't pay much attention after that. So, yeah, I totally get that they can/could make sublime pop. My Wednesday was work-y, but it was okay. What shape did your Thursday take? ** David Ehrenstein, Well, yes. ** James, Hi. You won't be sorry. He's a really amazing poet. My workload its easing up just a little, yeah. The end might be in sight, we'll see. Ha, yeah, thank you about my ladyness. All of our drag characters had names and fleshed out identities and narratives that we worked within. My character was a country girl, a commune-living lesbian named Mavis Purvis. I had a fictional baby that I'd had with my fictional girlfriend that I carried around with me. It was a doll that had been extremely burned, cut, and generally wrecked. When the other 'ladies' expressed horror at my baby's state, I said, 'Yes, its awful, he accidentally fell down the stairs'. So my character was kind of creepy under its hippie-dippy-ness. ** Tosh Berman, Thank you, Tosh. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Yes, Donald's work has been really forgotten, but hopefully this book will correct that. Thanks about the work stuff. I think it's almost over, I hope, I hope. When do you sometimes wish you were born? Do you have fantasy, perfect time in mind? Only one more exam, yay! A job, anti-yay! What kind of job do you want to get? Enjoy whatever today makes for you to the max! ** Steevee, Hi. Oh, hopefully your editor is just a procrastinator and will alert you at the last minute, worse comes to worse. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Well, god knows FB knows all, so hopefully they're on the money with the good news promise. Whoa, 660 pages of Pettibon? What's in that book? Is it just his work? Oh, wait, you linked to it. I see. Yeah, it looks great! ** Bill, Hi. Yeah, a brief cameo by the ladies. Zac and I are there from Monday afternoon to Friday morning. Pretty quick. We're staying at Kevin and Dodie's. They'll be out of town and kindly leant us their joint to crash in and make coffee, etc.. You're coming on Tuesday, cool. I just asked them to invite you. Very looking forward to seeing you, very obviously! ** Okay. Today ... oh, right, another of these thematic posts that I seem to be into making of late. Try it. See you tomorrow.