Sanford Biggers’ Chimeras series brings together the bodies of well-known Greco-Roman sculptures with over-sized heads formed by African masks. The mashups create a complex and tonally ambiguous effect – incongruous certainly, but not necessarily comic. Biggers has spoken about his interest in artwork that has an ‘unfamiliar’ tone; arguing that ‘a great artwork can make… Continue reading Sanford Biggers’ Chimeras
Category: sculpture
Googly eyes
The cartoonish owl in Nicole Eisenman’s new sculpture, ‘Love and Generosity’, eyes pointing slightly in different directions, is one of a string of recent characters with the same feature: Heihei, the stowaway chicken in the Disney film, Moana; the pigeon in Spies in Disguise who eats anything and everything; and most recently, the family’s pug… Continue reading Googly eyes
Nicole Eisenman’s Love or Generosity
Nicole Eisenman’s new sculpture, ‘Love or Generosity’, has just been installed outside the New Amsterdam Courthouse. Gender-fluid, and featureless save for a bulbous nose, with mussed hair and chubby hands, the figure is recognisable from the other over-sized figures of her recent oeuvre. This one is a real giant, though, about 5 metres high, and… Continue reading Nicole Eisenman’s Love or Generosity
Kara Walker’s burlesque memorial
Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus, a 13-metre fountain that references the legacies of the British empire and the transatlantic slave trade is the latest Turbine Hall commission at Tate Modern. Modelled on the Queen Victoria memorial outside Buckingham Palace, it is, as Alastair Sookes puts it, ‘a burlesque version’ of the original memorial, as well as a… Continue reading Kara Walker’s burlesque memorial
Humour in the Arts 