National Portrait Gallery acquires Marc Quinn's bloody head
Thursday 10 September 2009
Latest in News
On Facebook
Arts & Ents blogs
Interview with ‘Being Human’ creator Toby Whithouse
The writer behind BBC3’s supernatural comedy-drama ‘Being Human’ speaks to Neela Debnath about serie...
Looking Forward To The Past: A chat with Poker Flat boss Steve Bug
One of the main reasons I became so obsessive with house and techno music was a live DJ set by Germa...
Mario & Vidis: An album makes you rethink what you’ve been doing
In 2007 Marijus Adomaitis teamed up with Vidmantas Cepkauskas to form Mario & Vidis – Lithuania...
VIEW GALLERY
'Self', Marc Quinn's visceral sculpture made of nine pints of his frozen blood, fast became one of the most recognisable works from Charles Saatchi’s collection of works by the "Young British Artists" in the 1990s.
When it was first exhibited, it drew gasps of repulsion and admiration alike. It created an even greater stir when it was reported to have half melted after Saatchi’s wife, Nigella Lawson, accidentally switched the fridge off.
Luckily, Quinn has made three more since the original, the latest of which has been bought by the National Portrait Gallery.
It is the first cast in the series of four sculptures - which Quinn has pledged to produce every five years to catalogue the ageing process - that has been bought by a museum collection in Britain. The other three sculptures are in New York, Dallas and Korea, both in private hands and public galleries.
Quinn, who said the work was inspired by Rembrandt's self portraits, refused to confirm whether the original had to be remade after the reported accident by Lawson, but said it was now fully in tact with its owner, the hedge fund billionaire, Steve Cohen, in New York.
This latest 'Self' shows Quinn looking older but wiser since his original from 1991 which took pride of place in Saatchi’s exhibition called 'Sensation' at the Royal Academy. It was bought for £300,000 by the NPG, with the help of The Art Fund, and Henry Moore Foundation, and it will be displayed in the gallery's permanent collection, in a case whose temperature is set at minus 18 degrees to prevent it from melting.
Quinn said 'Self' had been driven by his desire "to push portraiture to an extreme, a representation which not only has the form of the sitter, but is actually made from the sitter's flesh."
Quinn’s second 'Self', made in 1996, was bought by Texan collectors Cindy and Howard Rachofsky. It is now partly owned with the Dallas Museum of Art, where it will ultimately remain as a full gift. The 2001 sculpture belongs to the Korean collector, Kim Chang-il (known as C.I. Kim), who has a private museum in a shopping complex he owns in Cheonan, outside Seoul.
- 1 BANNED: The most controversial films
- 2 Spotify: 1 million plays, £108 return
- 3 Six Grammys, five years off: Adele puts love before career
- 4 Rich art collectors 'know the price of everything – and the value of nothing'
- 5 Adam Riches: A comedian who strikes fear into his audience
- 6 Mona Lisa's 'twin sister' is discovered – 500 years late
- 7 The artist vandalising advertising with poetry
- 1 Spotify: 1 million plays, £108 return
- 2 How Koscielny became prince of the Emirates
- 3 Apple admits it has a human rights problem
- 4 Mark Steel: If religion is 'marginal', I'm the Pope
- 5 No secularism please, we're British
- 6 Lightning kills an entire football team
- 7 Matthew Norman: There's always the Human Rights Act, Trevor
- 8 Special report: The hungry generation
- 9 I was born to be a killer. Every night I see the Devil in my dreams
- 10 Six Grammys, five years off: Adele puts love before career
Free trial of new Independent iPad app
Get your daily dose of the best of British journalism, sponsored by American Airlines
Win a three-week coastal jaunt
Spend three weeks exploring every nook and cranny of gorgeous Atlantic Canada.
Amazing restaurant offers
Three glasses of free champagne and a special menu at 46 top London restaurants.
Latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Career Services
Day In a Page
No secularism please, we're British




Comments