Death by degrees nude
He imagines that the atoms that were once part of his body have become part of a tree or star. Quinn describes the universe as interconnected on an atomical level at which particles move invisibly from one form of being to another. In this method the future is already manifested in the present. Quinn’s art suggests a sacramental closeness between the sacred and material.
The alchemical method affirms a divide between God and creation and establishes distinctions between the sacred and the profane.
The alchemical process bridges the abject and ethereal Quinn’s work engages neither the abject nor the ethereal. It is noteworthy that the alchemical approach to art making, while potentially inspirational, is theologically rooted in a conception of creation as ignoble and in need of transformation. Sel f is rooted in an incarnational approach which embodies the immaterial in the material Ofili’s methodology is shaped by an alchemical process which transforms dung into art. While the aesthetics of mortality is concerned with human frailty and transience, the aesthetics of transcendence celebrates the potential transformation of, even ascension from, an abject state of existence. Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary has been called vulgar and offensive by some, but it can be seen in terms of an aesthetics of transcendence. Nevertheless, comparing their methods illuminates both artists’ work. Although they are often grouped because of their provocative use of organic material, Quinn and Ofili’s respective approaches are more antithetical than similar. One YBA whose work mostly stands outside this preoccupation with mortality is Chris Ofili. Caravaggio’s painting was replaced by an acceptable, and sentimental, work by Carlo Saraceni, also titled Death of the Virgin, which shows her glowingly alive, seemingly incapable of dying. Caravaggio’s Death of the Virgin, which hangs in the Louvre, was refused by the church for which it was commissioned because it depicted the Virgin Mary as too vividly dead. Its critics contend that there is an inherent impropriety in containing the transcendent within the impermanent, the infinite within the finite. The aesthetics of mortality has always had its detractors, particularly when it is applied to sacred themes.
Their way of art-making actualizes the matter of life and death, making the frailty and decay of our bodies visible and palpable: they practice an aesthetics of mortality. Though it is often ignored, there is a distinct and intentional sacramental dimension to the methodology, themes, and forms of the work of many YBAs.
If artists such as Quinn, Hirst, and Whiteread have anything in common besides their passports, it is an interest in the relationship between the mortal body and imperishable soul. Like many YBAs, Quinn gained international attention through the 1997 exhibition of Charles Saatchi’s YBA collection, Sensation, in which he showed Self (1991). Collectively, these artists, including Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili, Mark Wallinger, and Rachel Whiteread, have been called the young British artists, or YBAs, a name that becomes increasingly ill-fitting as they enter their fifties. All images are courtesy of White Cube Gallery and copyright of the artist.īorn in 1964, Quinn is of a generation of artists who came to prominence in the mid-1990s. Blood of the artist, stainless steel, Perspex, and refrigeration equipment.