Meat

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John Isaacs Various, 2005 – 2007
‘Isaacs is well-known for his imagery of decay, abandonment and hopelessness. Working mainly on sculptures and installations, Isaacs is interested in the mentality and physicality of human beings. Their emotions, their scars, the way they keep going and the reason they stop. Commenting on the fragility of the body and the oppositions met in materials and forms, Isaacs creates his works as if they were statements towards a cursed world.’

 

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Nenad Marasovic Piece of human meat, 2009
‘He is preocupy by the human body and all aspects of figurative painting.’

 

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Kerry Escobedo Steak, 2017
‘Meat is more than food to Decatur-based artist Kerry Escobedo. Each cut is a map of an animal’s life, deserving of portraiture. And it’s almost exclusively what she’s been painting for the past few years.’

 

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Christian Lemmerz Cadaver, 2014-2016
‘Christian Lemmerz has created a large white marble sculpture, which combines the classic, white aesthetic with a morbid theme, which in turn challenges the notions of art, beauty and death. At first glance, the impressive technique seems to be overshadowed by the works’ raw brutal themes: for example, death and mutilation. The result is a contrast between the stunning and the terrible in a transgressive aesthetic, which is beautifully immortalised in marble.’

 

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Roy Lichtenstein Standing Rib (Meat), 1962

 

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Tamara Kostianovsky Actus Reus, 2016
‘For her series Actus Reus, New York City-based artist Tamara Kostianovsky recreated dead animal carcasses out of discarded fabric and clothing, turning the harshness of slaughtered livestock into plush, easier to visually swallow cuts of meat.’

 

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Peter Anton T-Bone Steak, 2015
mixed media

 

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ODL Balloon Factory, 2012
‘NoHo Design District commissioned Chicago-based design studio ODL (Object Design League) to create Balloon Factory, a meat balloon window installation for Japan Premium Beef in New York City. These balloons were handmade by Steven Haulenbeek, Caroline Linder, Michael Savona, and Lisa Smith. The installation was curated by Sight Unseen and was on display May 18 to 21, 2012.’

 

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Simone Fattal La Maison Syrienne, 2016
ceramic, 20 x 47 x 30 cm

 

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Zhang Huan My New York, 2002
‘My New York brought together several ideas, The steak suit created a protective shell that gave Zhang Huan a formidable presence. However its raw red surface also suggested a flayed body and reduced the artist to an almost animal-like condition. The doves, a symbol of reconciliation and liberation, referenced the Buddhist tradition of setting live animals free to accumulate grace. Thus for Zhang Huan, this work again summed up a series of mixed feelings about his complex relationship to his adopted city. Describing this work, he has remarked, “A bodybuilder will build up strength over the course of decades, becoming formidable in this way. I, however, become Mr. Olympic Bodybuilder overnight.”‘

 

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Marc Quinn Flesh Paintings, 2011 -2020
‘For a vegan, Marc Quinn really likes meat. In fact, he seems borderline obsessed. His Flesh Paintings are so vivid that, until you see the tiny brushstrokes, one assumes they are photographic.’

 

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Jean Fautrier Hostage Head No. 1, 1944
‘Fautrier is best known for the paintings in his Hostages series, inspired by his horror at the brutality and suffering of the Second World War. These strange paintings feature layer upon layer of heavy paint creating a central image that is abstract but suggests a decaying human head. The pale powdery colours evoke death, but the delicacy of the handling gives them a mysterious ambivalence.’

 

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Adriana Varejão Azulejaria em Carne Viva (Tilework with Live Flesh), 1999
‘In her relief painting series Tilework in Live Flesh, sculpted purplish-red viscera seem to spill from a torn-open wall of delicate blue-and-white Portuguese tiles. A commentary on the brutality of colonization, the piece puts into action Brazilian critic Oswald de Andrade’s exhortation to artists to “cannibalize” the culture of their colonizers.’

 

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Paul Thek Meat Piece with Warhol Brillo Box, 1965
‘In 1964, Andy Warhol exhibited his Brillo Boxes at the Stable Gallery in New York. The sculptures epitomized the style of Pop Art then in vogue, and offered a deadpan commentary on consumer culture. A few months later, Thek used one of Warhol’s boxes to make this sculpture, which was the then exhibited back at the Stable gallery. Inside Warhol’s deliberately banal box, Thek’s meat, with its tangled layers of tissue, bone, fat, and cherry-red blood, demands a visceral response.’

 

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Barthélémy Toguo Déluge III, 2016
Ink on paper mounted on canvas

 

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Pope.L Claim, 2017
‘Art critics noted the stink as soon as the elevator opened. Indeed, the morning of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Biennial preview, Pope L.’s contribution smelled like rotten lunch. For good reason: Claim consists of 2,755 bologna slices nailed in grid formation on the walls of a small, freestanding room within the exhibition.

‘Plastic basins catch the grease run-off along the museum floor. By early April, nearly a month later, the stench had faded considerably and in May, it seemed gone, as the bologna dried—or “cured” per ArtNews—into something probably more akin to beef jerky now. Claim considers the usefulness of race as a social category: Affixed to each piece of meat is a photocopy of someone who may or may not be Jewish. According to the Whitney’s label, the number of slices reflects 1 percent of the Jewish population in New York. Or not. The math, we’re told, is a “bit off”— a deliberate misrepresentation that doesn’t actually correspond to census data, the pictures taken at random. What, the artist is asking, makes us think we can recognize Jews—or any other identity—with certainty? On June 2, Pope L. received the Whitney’s prestigious Bucksbaum Award, which grants one Biennial participant— whose work demonstrates a “singular combination of talent and imagination”— a future museum exhibition.’

 

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Fischli and Weiss Sausage Series (Wurstserie), 1979
‘Sausage Series (Wurstserie, 1979) was Fischli and Weiss’s first collaborative project, setting the tone for their work together. These ten color photographs present an array of staged vignettes created in miniature using foodstuffs and other household items.’

 

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Simone Racheli Toilet, 2007
‘Simone Racheli covers into inanimate objects into meat sculptures. The born Italian is taking house hold objects and covering or creating works of art representing fleshly meat. He hopes to expand his vision to entire sets such as a Kitchen.’

 

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Rommy de Bommy Raw Meat Purse, 2018
‘Contains no animal products! – 100% BIO. Hollow from inside which means there’s some space inside for some small things like an iPhone6/7/8/XR/XS, Make-up, money, and cards.’

See it here

 

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Imran Qureshi And They Still Seek the Traces of Blood, 2014
‘“And they still seek the traces of blood” (2013) has become renowned for its ability to invoke emotional responses from viewers as this intrinsic work is printed on thousands of crumpled sheets of paper and gathered to form a steep heap. The title of his artwork, “And they still seek the traces of blood quotes a poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz4 about individuals who have been killed and buried without their lives honored nor the events surrounding their deaths investigated.’

 

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Doreen Garner A Fifteen Year Old Girl Who Would Never Dance Again; A White Man In Pursuit of the Pedestal, 2017
‘Garner speaks of her work as being in conversation with that of Harriet Washington, the author of Medical Apartheid. In her book, Washington gives the account of a fifteen-year-old enslaved girl who became the victim of W. H. Robert, a physician and instructor in Georgia. When the girl was brought to him with a minor injury, he decided to amputate her leg for his class. The surgeon told his students that amputation should be considered according to race and class, and had administered the amputation not because it was necessary but in order to teach a lesson to his students. This is the story that inspired Garner’s A Fifteen Year Old Girl Who Would Never Dance Again; A White Man In Pursuit of the Pedestal: a silicon, bloodied leg inlaid with beads and Swarovski crystals atop a rotating, metal operating table whose presentation conjures images of a car for sale at a dealership.’

 

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Jala Wahid Broken Lining, 2017
‘If artists are generally boundary-crossers, a younger generation of (mostly women) artists is going for full penetration—making artworks that speak to something deep in the body, producing responses that range from carnal attraction to disgust. Among the most potently grotesque examples are Jala Wahid’s visceral, sculptural allusions to cuts of meat and dismembered organs and body parts.’

 

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Jamie Shovlin Hiker Meat, 2013
‘Set in an American summer camp in the 1970s, Hiker Meat is both an affectionate homage to and an academic deconstruction of the exploitation genre. It includes a full complement of horror and slasher film standards; from a hitchhiking heroine with a troubled past to a charismatic commune leader, and a group of teenagers who disappear one by one.’

 

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Wolfgang Tillmans Astro crusto, 2012
Photograph, Framed C-print

 

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DOPENESS ART LAB Co-branded-Hidden Black Diamond and Beef Jerky, 2021
‘※Please keep the mouth of the bag sealed at any time after opening, and finish eating as soon as possible. ※Because the content of butter flower is quite rich, if butter or its white crystals appear, it is normal, please feel relieved to eat. ※Selected directly from Australia, grown in a pure environment, and raised with high-quality grains for 300 to 600 days of black hair Wagyu, the oil flowers are distributed in a marble pattern, and the chewing is elastic, the meat is soft and juicy, and the mellow beef jerky makes Human lips and teeth leave fragrance. ※Because shea butter is quite rich in butter, if butter or its white crystals appear, it is normal, so please feel free to consume it.’

 

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Lynda Benglis EAT MEAT, 1969–1975
‘An early poured foam work which Benglis later cast in aluminum.’

 

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Anish Kapoor Internal Objects in Three Parts, 2013-2015
‘With Internal Object in Three Parts, Anish Kapoor created works of art that look like slaughtered animals (or worse), made of silicone that was applied on rough fabric. Dark red tones and brownish colours combined with some whites give them the appearance of fresh meat that has just been skinned.’

 

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Victoria Reynolds Untitled, 2013
‘Meat is not an image one thinks of when they are trying to picture a stunning Victorian-Era painting, but artist Victoria Reynolds has a different image in her mind. Reynolds has used the traditional techniques of oil painting and has created this eerie deception of meat. What is very odd is the manner in which this meat has been painted. Reynolds is an excellent artist, and the meat looks incredibly realistic. However, it is also done in a way that resembles the vibe of a traditional portrait, which makes it strange that it isn’t a human face we are looking at. Also, she has put her portrait in old-world style frames, which adds onto the Victorian feel.’

 

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Jonathan Payne Fleshettes, 2014
‘Jonathan Payne calls these deeply repulsive sculptures ‘FLESHLETTES,’ and that name says a lot. They’re basically lumps of human viscera, teeth, eyes and hair put together into little miniature packages.’

 

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Seemly2 Love’s Steaks, 2019

 

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Carolee Schneemann Meat Joy, 1964
‘Meat Joy is an erotic rite — excessive, indulgent, a celebration of flesh as material: raw fish, chicken, sausages, wet paint, transparent plastic, ropes, brushes, paper scrap. Its propulsion is towards the ecstatic — shifting and turning among tenderness, wildness, precision, abandon; qualities that could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent. Physical equivalences are enacted as a psychic imagistic stream, in which the layered elements mesh and gain intensity by the energy complement of the audience. The original performances became notorious and introduced a vision of the “sacred erotic.”‘

 

 

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p.s. Hey. If anyone’s interested, I’m the new guest on Jesse Pearson’s ‘Apology’ podcast. “On this episode of the Apology podcast, the writer Dennis Cooper talks about finding inspiration in the Jesus and Mary Chain, his teenage reading of the Marquis de Sade, his legendary punk literary fanzine Little Caesar, the kind of writing that crystal meth begets, and the George Miles cycle (a.k.a. his magnum opus).” Here. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Happy 2022. Ha ha. My love opening the door that  your love just slammed and yelling after him, ‘If you’re lucky!’, G. ** T, Hi. Thanks for the meeting hopes. Unfortunately it went as badly as I had feared. Gare de Lyon! That’s my second favorite Paris train station after the mighty Gare de l’Est. Oh, shit, right, quarantining, that isn’t a surprise, come to think of it. I was asleep at midnight but repeatedly, briefly woken up by the pings of well-wishing texts. Yeah, the slaves were a gloomy bunch last month, or maybe their masters were. Aw, maybe I should try to hit up BanishedCrystal for some cash, but, with that name, I do wonder about his reliability. Here’s hoping your day is somehow as exciting as Ruinmythroat’s sex life is in his imagination. xo. ** David, Very nice poem fragments, thank you. Ironic is the word. Happy new start! ** David Ehrenstein, Those guys still exist, David. Well, I mean their 21st century equivalents. ** _Black_Acrylic, Happy happy, Ben. Here it is: 2022. We made it. Or most of us did. I hope it dawns dawningly for you. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, Thomas! HNY! No, they were a haunted bunch. There was a point when I was assembling them when I thought, is this too dark? But I went with the flow. It would be massively lovely to have you here more frequently, maestro, should that create any kind of benefit for you. Sir, ‘Forever’ was one of the year’s ultra-highest things! So great! Wow, I mean, thank you so, so much for what you wrote about ‘I Wished’. That’s so fucking meaningful to me, T., I can’t tell you. Amazing, thank you! Yes, we must see one another and hang there or here. Surely, surely, the channel will become the doable hop it was. Have the best first day of any year ever, my friend! Love, me. ** Bill, HNY! Apparently so, and, yes, odd considering their generally iron fist. What did you watch in the end? I ended up watching a documentary about Ricky Powell, the early Hiphop/Beastie Boys photographer, and it wasn’t bad. I almost watched the new ‘Matrix’, but I decided too hold out hope for a big screen viewing before it dies. ** geymm, Yeah, I told you. Spooky batch. Well, or the most beautiful ones are the ones the imaginers most wish were dead? Which makes more sense? HNY! ** rafe, Hi, rafe! So far all I know about 2022 is that my coffee still seems to work the same way as it did last year. Yes, I was so sad to read that Ben McFall died. He was such a great, amazing guy. Interacting with him at the Strand was often the only reason I went there. He pointed me at a lot of writers I came to love and might not have discovered if it weren’t for him. Very, very sad. Fuck. Wishing for a less weird 2022 for you, and for me too, for sure. ** Brian, Hey, Brian. Scary group, yes, and perfect for ushering us out of that newly deceased grim year maybe. Me too, re: InMemoryOfRicko. That profile kind of save the day in a strange way. Oh, shit, about your Dad, but fingers crossed that you stay in the clear. ‘Hogg’ is a singularity. Never before, never since. I did zero other than watch a movie last night, so we were in the same (leaky?) boat. I definitely toast you on that toast. Fucking hell, the good shit, bring it on! HNY, pal! ** Right. Let’s get this new year started right with a weekend full of meat. See you on Monday.