Marc Quinn at Gagosian - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Along with British artists Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Chris Ofili and Abigail Lane, Marc Quinn has helped to spark an international sensation, greatest in quantity notably in 1991 with Self a refrigerated cast of the artist's head made of nine pints of his possess congealed blood. In his first novel York solo exhibition, he continued this exploration of mortality using a vast array of materials and casting techniques, from rubber and polyurethane to silvered glass and frozen flowers.

Raucous sexual and scatological easy in mind is typically encountered in Quinn's work; his "Shit Paintings" and Shit Head of 1997 as well as Incarnate of 1996 a boiled sausage filled with the artist's vital fluid are primary examples. But none of these more odd works was included in the new exhibition; which is not to say that his display was lacking in morbidity or sexual contented Life-size casts of the artist's in a state of nature body (in bronze, rubber and polyurethane) hung by means of their feet from stainless-steel suspension units upon the ceiling. The figures had been sliced laterally from head to toe, and their backsides flipped upwards to reveal the insides. These macabre pieces resembl sloughed skins, emphasizing the uncanny ability of the cast to imitate muscle and fat In Yellow Cut Nervous Breakdown, a cast sundered head on a steel twig was covered with psychedelically colored polyurethane which, before it solidified, had dripped down to the base, pooling above it and onto the floor.

The "Morphology" pieces upon the floor were made of silvered glass which resembl globules of spilled mercury. Despite the abstraction and scattering of the forms, sum of two units shapes were ostensibly identifiable as the artist's head and penis. Indeed, the penis was thus prevalent throughout the show that it left individual wondering if the artist was arrogant or anxious about his might Eternal Spring (Red) I testified to a (perhaps related) preoccupation with fertility and mortality. In the center of the expanse red flowers in full blossom stood frozen in a whirring, custom-built freezer unit.

The greatest in quantity remarkable piece in the present to view was The Great Escape. Resembling a large banana whose rubbery fulvid skin had been peeled back, this piece revealed a invert cast of the artist's material part within its cocoonlike interior. Suspended from the ceiling and braced by the agency of large anchors on the floor, this enormous plastic art conjured up images of large sea creatures being shakeed in by ships, while its qualities of monumental absurdity also confirmed Quinn's clap sensibility.

Critic Jane Rankin-Reid was right when, in 1993 she referr to Marc Quinn as "one of the bad bad lads on the English art scene" on the other hand that claim could not be made with regard to the display at Gagosian. Instead of reverting to adolescent shock-techniques, Quinn has created works whose impact issues from thematic coherence and sheer visual appeal. In fact, he was looking mighty "good"

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