A Sculpture by Marc Quinn entitled "Myth (Sphinx), part of the Artzuid Amsterdam Sculpture Biennial
Marc Quinn (born 8 January 1964) is a British contemporary visual artist whose work includes sculpture, installation and painting. Quinn explores 'what it is to be human in the world today' through subjects including the body, genetics, identity, environment and the media. His work has used materials that vary widely, from blood, bread and flowers, to marble and stainless steel. Quinn has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Sir John Soane's Museum, Tate, National Portrait Gallery, Fondation Beyeler, Fondazione Prada and South London Gallery. The artist was a notable member of the Young British Artists movement, which included Sarah Lucas and Damien Hirst. Quinn is internationally celebrated and was awarded the commission for the first edition of the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2004, for which he exhibited Alison Lapper Pregnant. Quinn's notorious frozen self-portrait series made of his own blood, Self (1991–present) was subject to a retrospective at Fondation Beyeler in 2009. Quinn lives and works in London. In April 2006, Sphinx, a sculpture of Kate Moss by Quinn, was revealed. The sculpture shows Moss in a yoga position with her ankles and arms wrapped behind her ears. This body of work culminated in an exhibition at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York in May 2007. The sculpture is on permanent display in Folketeatret in Oslo, Norway. To me, this sculpture is an addition to a long lineage of archetypal female images, stretching from the Venus of Willendorf in prehistoric times, through Nefertiti’s bust in Egypt, images of the Virgin, and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus in the Renaissance, to Warhol’s Marilyn and in my own work – the sculpture of Alison Lapper. Sphinx is a rebirth of Venus. It is a portrait of Kate Moss’s image, not of herself. An interesting thing about Kate Moss is that, because she never gives interviews, she’s almost purely ubiquitous image. Like the frozen flower garden, which raises the question ‘When does an object becomes an image.
Size: 3744px × 5616px
Location: Junction of Breitner Straat and Apollolaan, Amsterdam, Holland
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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