On 12 October, the National Gallery of Australia celebrates its 35th birthday with an exclusive lecture by provocative British artist Marc Quinn. Quinn is one of 32 ground-breaking artists featured in Hyper Real, the NGA’s upcoming summer exhibition (20 October – 18 February 2018).
Created using the artist’s own blood, Quinn’s self-portrait, Self (2011), encapsulates the exhibition’s radical approach to the body. Self (2011) is one of a series of self-portraits created at five-year intervals from 1991 onwards. To make each sculpture, Quinn creates and then fills a mould of his head with exactly ten pints (5.6 litres) of blood. Decades in the making, Self documents the artist’s aging and physical deterioration.
Marc Quinn will be in conversation with Kirsten Paisley, NGA Deputy Director. ‘Quinn’s work exemplifies the unique and extraordinary ways in which the body is explored as a site for cultural expression, and his work, Self is in many ways the ultimate form of self-portraiture. He’s a great artist with which to share our 35th birthday.’
Hyper Real charts the evolution of hyperrealism from its inception in the early 1970s. The jawdropping display includes artworks that speak to hyperrealism’s focus on ultra-realistic representations of the human form, while simultaneously challenging the perceived boundaries of the genre through video and digital art, virtual reality, and – significantly – Quinn’s extraordinary brand of bio-art.
‘Quinn’s Self exists simultaneously within the past, present and future,’ explains Jaklyn Babington, NGA Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. ‘Quinn’s material of choice is blood, and by sculpting with biological matter, he contributes to our understanding of hyperrealism in a unique way. The sculpture sits in a limbo – simultaneously alive and dead, real and simulated. It is one of the most uncanny works of recent contemporary practice.’
The NGA’s Birthday Lecture with Marc Quinn takes place on 12 October at 6pm. Bookings essential