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Artwork Details:

  • TypeSculpture
  • Year2004
  • MediumBronze with black patina
  • Dimensions116h x 217w x 82d cm
More about this artwork:

“Technology has recently become available with which to scan three-dimensional objects into a computer program. This program can then either shrink or grow the information and a copy of the object on any scale can then be outputted by a computer-controlled cutter or lathe. What I love about this process is that it creates an enlargement of an object without human interaction or interpretation – which does occur when a sculpture is scaled up by traditional methods. So it is more like a three-dimensional photograph of an object and the resultant sculpture is like a simulation of the original in another dimension, literally and metaphorically. The process is analogous to DNA in that the instructions for making a three-dimensional object are broken down into a digital code like DNA. Then, when these instructions are ‘played’ through another machine, biologically or mechanically, they control the recreation of the three-dimensional object. The first sculptures I made using this method were the Cybernetically Engineered Cloned and Grown Rabbit sculptures. I took a rabbit carcass bought at the butcher’s, put it into a pose, froze it in the freezer, moulded it, then scanned a plaster cast from that mould. I also made the nanonized small rabbit. Nineteenth-century artists like Rodin took clay and attempted to make it feel like flesh. I thought a more contemporary way to make a figurative sculpture would?be to make it directly in flesh, in this case animal flesh. I made these sculptures as the Iraq war was happening and images of suffering human bodies were all over the news. However, they are also about the way humans pretend not to be animals and eat them without conscience. They are in a way about denial in all its forms, the denial which enables one human to see another as different enough to have to kill; enables us to pet a dog while eating a hamburger. Somehow, it felt to me that these animals – whose bodies were never destined to remain whole, but were to be made invisible and divided into a thousand shrink-wrapped sausages or steaks – deserved an acknowledgement of their sacrifice. To me they are beautiful and terrible at the same time, something about being human learnt from animals.” Marc Quinn, Recent Sculptures Catalogue, Groninger Museum

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