Viewers are used to having this private experience with the work and it is intimidating to have the artist present. I learned about this specific work in my art history class a few years ago, and to me, Antoni provides a thought-provoking commentary on eating disorders and the double standard for women. Her work references the masculine genealogy of Modernism with its hammer and chisel imagery but flips this to be an art piece aimed at a female audience. But there was no need for anything like that in Madrid. [26], Slumber is a performance piece which stretched over the course of many weeks. Border Crossings wishes to acknowledge funding from the following organizations. Janine Antoni, Lipstick/Phenethylamine Display, 1992, detail. Antoni's work is in various public museum collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA),[14] National Gallery of Art,[15] the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,[16] The Broad,[17] the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[18] among others. Was it done out of frustration? A similar thing happened at the Guggenheim when I was performingSlumber. SHMuch of your art has this condition. An arbitration. Border Crossings: You tend to ask yourself questions when you work, like what is the material of dreams? Fortunately, we had the image by then. What are your models? The works that I really love are things like Carolee SchneemannsMeat Joyor Joseph BeuyssI Love America and America Loves Me, or Chris Burden having himself shot. JANINE ANTONI: [. The key word for me isempathy. Here came the Janine; there went the Judd. There was this one woman who said, Get out of the way. Her words still ring in my mind. If she falls down, she wants to put her finger there for comfort, like a security blanket. Her work blurs the line between sculpture and performance art. The context surrounding Harlem pushed me into a place that I would have never gone. People were touching me, touching the loom, sitting on the chair next to me. [19], In her work Gnaw (1992), Antoni used her mouth to bite, chew, and carve the corners and edges of two 600lb (300kg) cubes,[20] one made of chocolate and the other of lard. The most fascinating was how self-revelatory people were. The artist uses her mouth instead of tools to cut away materials. I chose not to leave them because for me, the interest lay in the licking and the washing as a gentle, loving act, and how that butted up against the fact that I was defacing myself. I wanted a sculpture where I had two objects that resisted and gave into each other at an equal rate. Then I came to copper. Lick and Lather, self-portrait bustsseven in chocolate, seven in soapwere shown at the Venice Biennale. Gnaw, 1992); the absent body, gender roles, and the oral focus are recurring issues in her work. SHBecause when I think of performance and installation art from the past 20, 30 years, I think of work that is much more hostile towards the audienceBruce Nauman, Vito Acconcithe desire to push the audience to an extreme. So there I am, moving throughSwoon, disoriented at the beginning, which is where you want me . It is an effort to connect. In her installation Slumber (1994), Antoni slept in the gallery for 28 days and while she slept, an EEG machine recorded her REM patterns, which she then wove into a blanket from the night gown under which she slept. JAFor me, that removal is a generous act, in the sense that it creates a place for the viewer. Right. Executed in 1994. Its not only through the object, but the way its been written about and the way the artists themselves talk about it. Janine Antoni is a contemporary American artist known for her performances and sculptural installations. JAMy generation is much more self-conscious about documentation. All photos courtesy of Luhring Augustine. Momme, 1995, c-print, 36 x 29. Janine Antoni: What were the questions? But in Zurich, the people were incredibly shy. I dont know whether to take it as a compliment or a criticism. My goal is to work in the broadest way possible, so that people wont have expectations as to what material or form I work with. I could have tried to force it, but what happened was so much more beautiful than I could have ever predicted. I wasnt going to have my face in it. Im really careful about what I show and what I dont show. This piece was created from the chewing of two large cubes made of chocolate and lard. It wasnt becoming flat. [3] In 1977, she moved to Florida for attending her boarding school. The work is project-driven, research is involved, its collaborative in terms of technical assistance and people you need to help you. Gnaw was a multi-tasker; it touched on consumer culture, the cult of beauty and art history, all neatly packaged in a single installation. I realize its charged. I do this to get some objectivity on myself, and my friends give that to me. . One-click unsubscribe at any time. ' (: Janine Antoni; -19 1964) , , . , . nc department of commerce organizational chart; simon goodwin partner Whenever I show in a museum the guards give me information I cannot get any other way. Somehow it seems like we dont talk about the power of art in that way. ? Instead, I started to consider skyscrapers and Gothic buildings and began to look for other Gothic buildings that I might use to create this image. The double read is an inescapable response. All images Janine Antoni. Gnaw. She is connected to a polysomnograph machine, which records her rapid eye movement during dream activity. They would tell me their dreams, their fears of sleeping alone. In Loving Care, the artist dipped her hair in a bucket of black hair dye and, on her hands a knees, used it to mop the floor. Using her mouth as a tool, Antoni nibbled the corners of both cubes, leaving visible teeth marks in the material. Religion Which are aspects of form? SHWhich one of your pieces do you feel is revealing in this intimate way? I want to make a great work every time as much for myself as anyone else, but Im much less worried about greatness now. Thats the digital c-print of your midsection and a child? She uses her own body as the primary tool in her creations, from drawing with her body to weaving blankets using her brainwaves. Seen here is documentation of the artist's work, "Loving Care". A similar thing happens inSwoon; the viewers have to deal with their assumptions and never quite get at the story. In the work, she chewed 600-pound cubes of chocolate, then the same quantity of lard, until she was too exhausted to continue. To live with them and be intimately involved in their lives pushed me into thinking about spirituality and art. Her first solo exhibition was a gnaw toy made of two huge cubes of chocolate and lard. Antonis suspension is, itself, ambiguous. As a mother, you have to be flexible, spontaneous and responsive in the moment. Photographed by Prudence Cumming Associates at Anthony dOffay Gallery, London, 1993. Lick and Latherlooked like Greek statues with their noses knocked off. JAI dont know. Stuart HorodnerPeople feel close to you because of the body-generated work you have done, and yet your work doesnt reveal autobiographical information. I thought it will be great to be so high, but when I actually got out there, the wind was terrifying. She lived with us and Alvin lived with us. In terms of the way I try to approach the things that I dont understand in the world or the things that offend me. In Catholicism there is the idea that the Virgin is the church. The photographer and I were on platforms to get me at the right height. Gargoyle because you were thinking Gothic building? [2], Antoni was born January 19, 1964, in Freeport, Bahamas. (She was also referencing Yves Kleins use of his models as paintbrushes with the transformative difference that in her enactment she was both model and master). Why does William Hogarth use iconography in The Harlot's Progress? When I first heard about Gnaw Janine Antonis 1993 installation I have to confess that I thought she had basically eaten as much chocolate as she could and whacked the remaining (huge) block of it on a marble pedestal. It didnt work! For one, I became part pirate or lion. BOMB includes a quarterly print magazine, a daily online publication, and a digital archive of its previously published content from 1981 onward. The artist is subverting conventional conceptions of beauty and eating disorders by biting at these materials. All the reading I have been doing recently has been on Buddhism. Image size 28 x 33. When I was looking atSwoon, a guard saw me apparently uncertain as to how to proceed through the piece, so he told me what the breathing was. One after the other until the guards stopped her. In a way what she did was an extension of my work. I thought that this unsolicited collaboration was a freak occurrence, but it happened again at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and in Philadelphia at the ICA. . . She spent the first weeks sleeping in the gallery space, a room with no decor, filled only by a wire-frame bed and a desk with a computer and wires. Installation view of the 1993 Biennial Exhibition (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, February 24-June 20, 1993). . Youve had tremendous opportunities for the work and you have been able to use them to scale up and scale down your practice, which I think is the only way to keep options open and let them feed you. somehow weve lost that, or at least nobody is willing to come out and acknowledge it. Psychologists talk a lot about transitional objects and my belly button was her transitional object. What is the relationship between seduction, desire and knowledge? Whether itsTender Buttons, the brooches of your nipples cast in gold, or the image one constructs of you bathing or licking self-portrait busts, there is this sense that one is with you in the moment you are forming these objects, but of course, ones not. You do work and you want it to be very seductive, you want people to be attracted to it. Janine Antoni (born January 19, 1964) is a Bahamianborn American artist, who creates contemporary work in performance art, sculpture, and photography. From these words make a map that will help you find content and subtext. Janine Antoni, left:Gnaw, 1992, 600 pounds of chocolate, gnawed by the artist, 24 24 24 inches; right:Gnaw, 1992, 600 pounds of lard before biting. I do these extreme acts because I feel that viewers can relate to them through their bodies. JAI like this idea of the thing that is missing and I agree that it is consistent in all the work. 500-70 Arthur StreetWinnipeg, MB R3B 1G7, Telephone: (204) 942 5778Toll-free: (866) 825 7165Fax: (204) 949 0793info@bordercrossingsmag.com. SHCan you talk about two quotes from past interviews? Traditionally, we stay objective and go through a process of decoding information to make meaning. Works by artists such as Donald Judd and Robert Morris were all about the cube. JAI learn a lot from the guards. She keeps returning to the doubleness of things; nowhere is that more evident than in Tear, the piece that dominated Up Against. Part of the piece took the form of a two-and-a-half ton wrecking ball, an object we invariably associate with destruction and violence. One Another came first. I always feel safer if I can bring the viewer back to the making of it. . Her engagement with the ambiguities of mothering continued in works like Momme, 1995, Coddle, 1999, and even in 2038, a colour photograph in which the artist, naked in a bathtub, seems to be nursing the cow whose number gives the image its name. She was the first woman artist to have a retrospective at the MoMA in 1982. Im pretty apt to think out loud; I have a lot of friends who listen to me rant on and on about my ideas. Halfway into the show, a young woman, a teenager from Czechoslovakia who was there with her parents on vacation, bit three noses off my chocolate heads! So I took it to heart, not the way the nuns meant it, which is that your body is sacred, but that my body could be a temple. The desire to know. JAArticulating a relationship. [10][11], She says of this performer/audience interaction: "This letter sums up my relationship to my audience. Provenance Luhring Augustine, New York Acquired from the above by the present owner Literature Its hard to get access because no one wants you on their roof, so I got turned down a lot. Random person eating chocolate is NOT part of the work! of chocolate gnawed by the artist; 600 lbs. But there are times when the best way to keep people in that place, which for me is so alive and pertinent, is to show the process or the making. Some have been successful, others have had trouble crossing over. SHIt has a nice ring to it. JAIf I dont have an experience with the object, how can I hope that the viewer will have an experience with the object? by Janine Antoni Installation art, performance art, sculpture. It is a pretty unique experience, talking to your viewers as they are looking at you and your work. I meant it to be very personal. Janine Antoni emerged in the early 1990s as an artist capable of reconciling performance with the object, and empowered feminist thinking with post-'80s artworld . Today, BOMB is a nonprofit, multi-platform publishing house that creates, disseminates, and preserves artist-generated content from interviews to artists essays to new literature. Its hard to know how to take it. It was a piece that did double duty. JAThe work has become more and more about myself as a way to protect myself. JUDITH RICHARDS: And where did your parents meet? This part of the display is called Lipstick/Phenethylamine Display. Im always interviewing those around me; and trying to understand how people see the work. It becomes this back-and-forth relationship. It is like choosing the kitchen of Beatrice Thomas for restoration. A lot of meaning comes out in the fight that I couldnt have known before starting. [10] In this process Antoni explored the body, as well as themes of power, femininity, and the style of abstract expressionism. Janine Antoni's gnawed reveals how she reconciled the notion of sculptural object and performance. In 1986, Antoni earned a BA from Sarah Lawrence College in New York. SHWere about the same age and I have the feeling that I was at AcconcisSeed Bed! To view the entire Elevenses with Lynne archive, head to theFree Art Videospage. Lots of chocolate. Each prompted some intriguing responses. The guards would be in my room watching me talk to people as I wove; when I left, they continued my conversation with the viewers. Simon Ortiz and Petuuche Gilbertby Daniel Flores y Ascencio, Geographies of Homeby Loida Maritza Perz, Susie, Kiki, Annieby Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Ellen Douglas's Truth: Stories I am Finally Old Enough to Tellby Betsy Sussler, De La Guarda: Villa Villaby Darrell Larson, Brie Ruais by James Trainor, Christine and Margaret Wertheim In Gnaw, Antoni forces these two lineages of art, one largely feminine WithSwoonI deal with narrative, but I fragment it. Antoni's work focuses on process and the transitions between the making and finished product, often portraying feminist ideals. When I was a little girl, my brother was reading a book about pirates and it mentioned Anne Bonnet. I could not find much about the public opinion of her, which might mean she is not extremely well known or doesn't make a huge impact, either positive or negative, on the viewers. The association is apt; as a woman artist Antoni was mimicking the making of an action painting and claiming a piece of the territory that had been occupied primarily by male artists. And so on one side you have a ball and socket where the rocks grip each other and then a beautiful arch where you can see straight through. That is the big difference, not that I am in it or not, but that there are different ways of communicating. Janine Antoni. Her work is a hybrid of post-80s ambition and feminist thinking. I really count on them. SHWhere does the interest or focus on empathy come from? This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. She was a woman pirate who disguised herself as a man. JANINE ANTONI: Yes, but this was Maria JUDITH RICHARDS: Oh, okay. pliable material is shaped into a three-dimensional form. About Janine Two 600 lb cubes One made of chocolate the other made of lard Used her own mouth to bite out chunks Made chocolate boxes and lipstick tubes Displayed in a mock store front The Meaning Behind It All The Facts about Gnaw Janine Antoni Born January 19, 1964 in Freeport Can you talk about the support and collaborations with your family . Phenethylamine is a stimulant found in chocolate and is also produced in the body when we fall in love. She calls my belly her belly. and a red lipstick that might aid in desirability, but there is a distinctly undesirable element to the way that they have been produced, unless perhaps you happen to be Antonis lover. Janine Antoni Gnaw, 1992 six hundred pounds of chocolate before biting six hundred pounds of lard before biting 5. So its clear that Antoni has a message here, and to me shes asking questions about what it means to be a woman both with desires and who is, and wants to be, desired. 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