Toying With Beauty And Beastliness

Action figures for 'Eye of the Beholder', The Twilight Zone, 1960

'A civilised society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.'

Robert Frost

Martin's Creed

Martin Creed (b. 1968) - Work No. 275, Small Things, 2003


'Reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it.'

Philip K. Dick

Andres Get Your Gun

Andres Serrano (b. 1950) - The Objects of Desire: Virginian Dragoon .44 Magnum (top), Virginian Dragoon .44 Magnum (8), 1992 (middle) and Colt D.A. 38 (3), 1992 (bottom)

A Void Cannot Be Vacuumed

Rachel Whiteread (b. 1963) - Untitled (One Hundred Spaces), 1995


'It is not certain that everything is uncertain.'

Blaise Pascal

Rehousing The Furniture Of The Id

Marcel Dzama (b. 1974) - Untitled, 2006




Marcel Dzama (b. 1974) - Untitled, 2006




Marcel Dzama (b. 1974) - Untitled, 2006




Marcel Dzama (b. 1974) - Untitled, 2006




Marcel Dzama (b. 1974) - Untitled, 2006

'The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.'

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

How To Make A White Elephant

Maurizio Cattelan (b. 1960) - Not Afraid of Love, 2004

'In the cultural field, authentic provocation serves to indicate an equally authentic and incurable contradiction. The modern rendition of the tragic is precisely the awareness of the irresolubility of the contradiction, and the impossibility of choice. Instead, the reality we are living today is the neutralisation of all conflict transformed by spectacle.'

Giorgio Vertozzi

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part Seven

George Stubbs (1724-1806) - The Duke of Richmond’s First Bull Moose, 1770

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part Six

George Stubbs (1724-1806) - The Lincolnshire Ox, 1790

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part Five

George Stubbs (1724-1806) - Two Indians with a Cheetah and Stag, c. 1765

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part Four

George Stubbs (1724-1806) - A Monkey, 1799

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part Three

George Stubbs (1724-1806) - A Couple of Foxhounds, 1792

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part Two

George Stubbs (1724-1806) - The Nilgai, (1769-71)

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part One

George Stubbs (1724-1806) - Lion Devouring a Horse, 1763

The Prism Of Nostalgia

Thomas Cole - Rainy Season in the Tropics (1866)


'There is nothing dead in nature.'

Seneca

Shooting Candles Of The Night

Joseph Wright of Derby - Firework Display at the Castel Sant' Angelo in Rome (1779)


'The repose of sleep refreshes only the body. It rarely sets the soul at rest. The repose of the night does not belong to us. It is not the possession of our being. Sleep opens within us an inn for phantoms. In the morning we must sweep out the shadows.'

Gaston Bachelard

Pantomimes Of Sin And Sorrow

Kara Walker (b. 1969) - Excavated from the Black Heart of a Negress, 2002 (detail)


'I didn’t want a completely passive viewer. Art means too much to me. To be able to articulate something visually is really an important thing. I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn’t walk away; he would either giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful. I wanted to create something that looks like you. It looks like a cartoon character, it’s a shadow, it’s a piece of paper, but it’s out of scale. It refers to your shadow, to some extent to purity, to the mirror.'

Kara Walker

My Green Heaven

'Absinthe is the aphrodisiac of the self. The green fairy who lives in the absinthe wants your soul. But you are safe with me.'

Dracula (Gary Oldman), Dracula, d. Francis Ford Coppola, 1992

Métrotextual

Arts et Métiers (Paris Métro)

'Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.'

Jules Verne

The DIY Dictator

'A revolution is an idea that has found its bayonets.'

Napoleon Bonaparte

Porcelain Pompadours

'One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel.'

Madame de Pompadour (Sophia Myles), 'The Girl in the Fireplace', Doctor Who (2006)

The Artificial Moon

Mike & Doug Starn (b. 1961) - Attracted to Light 1, 1998-01




Mike & Doug Starn (b. 1961) - Attracted to Light B, 1998-01

Mike & Doug Starn (b. 1961) - Attracted to Light D, 1998-01

The Garden Of Shadows

Mike & Doug Starn (b. 1961) - Structure of Thought No 2, 2001

Mike & Doug Starn (b. 1961) - Structure of Thought No 3, 2001

Mike & Doug Starn (b. 1961) - Structure of Thought No 4, 2001

Photosapien: Part Five - Thomas Ruff (b. 1958)

Thomas Ruff - Porträt (R. Huber), 1988

Thomas Ruff - Porträt (P. Stadtbaeumer), 1988

Photosapien: Part Four - Thomas Ruff (b. 1958)

Thomas Ruff - Stern 01h 32m/-30° , 1992

Thomas Ruff - Stern 17h 51m/-22, 1990

Photosapien: Part Three - Thomas Ruff (b. 1958)

Thomas Ruff - Nacht 10 III, 1993

Thomas Ruff - Nacht 14 I, 1993

Photosapien: Part Two - Thomas Ruff (b. 1958)

Thomas Ruff - Nudes ru05, 2000

Thomas Ruff - Nudes lac15, 2000

Photosapien: Part One - Thomas Ruff (b. 1958)

Thomas Ruff - Substrat 10 II, 2003

Thomas Ruff - Substrat 5 III, 2002

The Hunter Has Two Faces

George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879) - Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, 1845


'When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.'

George Bernard Shaw

Summoning The Softeness Of Stone

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) - The Rape of Prosperina (detail), 1621-22


'He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most.'

Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh

A Trio With Brio

Futurama


'Oh my God. This is just like that drug trip I saw in that movie while I was on that drug trip.'

Fry (Billy West)

They Thrive By Night

Peggy Cummins and John Dall in Gun Crazy (aka Deadly Is The Female) - d. Joseph H. Lewis, 1950


'People living deeply have no fear of death.'

Anaïs Nin

Call Me Damien

Damien Hirst - Death Explained, 2007


'Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air.'

From Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Philosopher of Fightin', Fuckin' 'n' Fartin'

'Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man...and give some back.'

Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), Deadwood