Category Archives: contemporary art

Icons of erotic art #8

Zygotic Acceleration, Biogenetic, De-Sublimated Libidinal Model (Enlarged x 1000) (1995) [1] is a sculpture by Jake and Dinos Chapman. It depicts lifesize fibreglass mannequins of children with genital organs of both sexes attached to their faces. It was shown at the Sensation exhibition in 1997, along with Great Deeds Against the Dead.

Sexual organs attached to faces is something I have been pondering on for as long as I can remember. What would have been the solution of the human race if this had been the case? How would we have covered the “pubic” area? How would lovemaking have looked like? This work by the Chapmans is remarkable, as is much of their other work. No doubt they are one of the most interesting contemporary artists.

In case you have been wondering why I only link to the pictures in this series, instead of showing the artworks in-line, the answer is that I keep a strict copyright policy after having had a run-in with my local copyright enforcement agency, SABAM, about two years ago. Since then, I only publish artworks by artists who have been dead for more than seventy years. Such is the law in Belgium. Belgian copyright law is even so strict that it prohibits to show photographs of buildings.

I find the use of mannequins in contemporary art very appealing, other works which have used this form are Chair, Table and Hat Stand by Allen Jones and Great Deeds Against the Dead, also by the Chapmans.

Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.

 

Introducing Les Krims

Les Krims (born August 16, 1942) is a United States conceptual photographer. He is noted for his carefully arranged fabricated photographs (called “fictions”), various candid series, a surreal satirical edge, dark humor, and long-standing criticism of what he describes as leftist twaddle. Works such as Heavy Feminist with Wedding Cake [1] (1970) has been criticized by anti-pornography feminists and feminist photographers as being fetishistic, objectifying, body despising and a misogynist who uses his photography to humiliate predominantly women. Even though Krims does include men (often himself, nude) in his photos, these critics contend that his primary viciousness is reserved for women.

Tip of the hat to [1].

Informe, abjection and Robert Gober

Happy birthday Robert Gober. Google gallery.

I have found 35 useful sources for the informe, the abject, and religious purity, which tend to be related in current discourse. These terms are often seen as variations on a theme but should be considered as quite separate according to Rosalind Krauss (see October Winter 1993 and Krauss, 1997).

Three theorists appear in this discourse: Georges Bataile, Julia Kristeva, and Judith Butler.

The artists that have been associated with the informe, the abject, and the grotesque include Fontana, Joel-Peter Witkin, Robert Gober, John Miller, David Hammons, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley and David Lynch. [1]

Diamond skull by Hirst sold … to himself

 

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For the Love of God [Google gallery] is a sculpture by artist Damien Hirst produced in 2007. It consists of a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, including a pear-shaped pink diamond located in the forehead of the skull. Costing $28 million to produce, the work went on display at the White Cube gallery in London at an asking price of $100 million. It was sold on August 30, 2007 for its asking price, making it the most expensive single work by a living artist. Sold to an unnamed investment group, Hirst has kept a share in the work.