Zee Jaipur Lit Fest 2019 Stories

After Bloodhead

After Bloodhead

Marc Quinn in conversation with Molly Crabapple

The J. Paul Getty Trust Series

By Aurodeep Mukherjee, Official ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival Blogger

"Art should engage with the real world and real issues," declared Marc Quinn. Accompanying the conversation with images of his artwork, the British artist and sculptor enthused the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival audience with his mind-opening exploration of the human body that influences his work.

Quinn's self-portrait, Self, is a bust cast of his own frozen blood. "It's a sculpture that exists only on life support," he said, since it must always be plugged in. Otherwise, it would melt into "a pool of blood." The dependence of this work on electricity and technology captures the idea of interconnectedness, which is a major theme in Quinn's work: "We're all connected to everything."

Quinn has returned to using blood for his next project, Bloodcube. "Blood can be seen as both positive and negative," he said, and in this case, it serves to document the plight of refugees in an essential biological fashion. The sculpture comprises two one-metre cubes, one made of the frozen blood of refugees, the other by people "who don't see themselves as refugees." The sculpture's "contingent solidity" again seeks to highlight our "dependence on other people to make things." When the sculpture is exhibited later this year or early next year, videos of the refugees narrating their stories will accompany it. "My blood and your blood is the same," said a refugee from the clip played for the audience.

Quinn feels "an artist should be inspired by the world we live in" – a world, which according to artist Molly Crabapple, offers access to "everything from pupil dilations to our anxieties." Yet at the same time, "We've been made readable by algorithms and databases, but unreadable by ourselves," she observed. As an effort to counter this tendency,Quinn's artworks We Share Our Chemistry with the Stars and Labyrinth portray a human iris and a fingerprint respectively, engaging in "different ways of looking at identity."

Flesh Painting on the other hand takes the viewer on "a journey into the inside of the body." Calling the representation of chopped meat simultaneously "beautiful and disgusting", Quinn stated, "I like things that are ambivalent, paradoxical." DNA Garden, a portrait made using framed jelly plates with DNA, is a "sci-fi version of the traditional Garden of Eden painting."

Quinn has also made traditional marble sculptures that are unique in their choice of subject: he represents handicapped individuals and others who have "biologically transformed" their bodies. "They are given dignity in the art work," he said.

"I think art can change the world," said Quinn. But by making "art about the world," he becomes more personally engaged. Art might also have an effect where discussion and words don't, because it "bypasses discussion and hits you viscerally." In Crabapple's words, "Art has to confront, and for me, that's the hope."