Might as well have something to go with the dead chicken.

~

Maurizio Cattelan

Untitled, 2009

cavetocanvas:

Ron Mueck,Still Life, 2009

I used to work in a poultry plant and I can vouch for the fact that this exactly what a naked dead chicken looks like. In case you were wondering.

“To be an artist, you have to be a good liar. There’s no question about that. If you’re not, you can’t be a good artist. Basically, you have to know how to fabricate, how to weave tales, how to tell lies, because you’re taking your audience to a nonexistent space and telling them that it does exist. But you have to be utopian in your approach. You have to create visions that don’t actually exist yet in the world—or that may actually someday exist as a result of life following art. It’s natural for people to want to be sectarian or divisive. Different cultures want to group together, they want to stick to their own culture, but what I do is create a kind of mongrel. In reality most people’s cultures have evolved out of this mongrelization, but people don’t acknowledge that. British culture in reality is very mixed. There’s a way in which people want to keep this notion of purity, and that ultimately leads to the gas chambers. What I am doing may be humorous so as to show the stupidity of things. But at the same time I understand that the logical conclusion of sectarianism is Auschwitz, or the “logical” in its starkest manifestation. So even though these works are humorous, there’s a very dark underlying motivation.” - Yinka Shinbare, Bomb Magazine 2005

 ~

Yinka Shonibare

Leisure Lady, 2010

Stefano Maderno, The Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia, 1599-1600

Kehinde Wiley, The Virgin Martyr St. Cecilia, 2008

Hey, I’ve been busy adjusting to school and life so in the meantime, have a look at some gorgeous contemporary art.

~

Christina Bothwell,

Mermaid, 2012

From my Canadian art blog that I just restarted because there is just too much interesting stuff going on here:

terresauvage:

I really enjoy Tierney’s queer take on Canadian art tropes. Here is her nod to Edward Holgate. 

You can read more about her work here:

Naked voyageurs, shattered statues and other things made by art students and teachers

~

Cara Tierney, Nude in a Landscape, 2012

Edwin Holgate, Nude in a Landscape, 1930

(via terresauvage-deactivated2012102)

I am writing an essay on motherhood as it is depicted in the first two Alien movies and it got me to thinking about how amazing Giger’s art is. This piece here is the one that originally inspired the aesthetic of the movies, the look of which Giger would come to play a large part in designing.

~

H.R. Giger

Necronom IV, 1976

This is the work that transformed my view of Hirst when I saw it in the Pop Life exhibit at the National Gallery of Canada. It filled me with gleeful joy as it fulfilled my girlhood dreams of finally seeing a “real” unicorn and yet it simultaneously made me really sad as reality set in; its a dead foal in a tank with some gold foil tacked to it. These two feelings created some kind of eerie sublime effect that I found really moving and beautiful. I am not sure of Hirst’s intentions but to me, it kind of symbolized the death of childhood. Pictures really do not do it justice.

~

Damien Hirst

The Child’s Dream, 2008