#SIREN1 - media;

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day 5

[manymargarets]

Women in Statues: Pygmalion, Marc Quinn and more...

We know that we talk a bit about why we aren't campaigning for a statue of Margaret like perhaps inVISIBLE Women would on our About page so we'll try not to repeat ourselves. Instead we want to go a bit deeper into some specific problematic statue representations of women in Western culture: the story of Pygmalion and examples of the work of sculptor Marc Quinn.

As with most Greek myths, Pygmalion is a story that is familiar to us due to its filtering through Western culture over the millennia since it was first told. The notion of a maker shaping their creation and giving them life is perhaps now more associated with Shelley’s Frankenstein than the myth of the ideal lover coming to life, but they both have more in common than one might think.

Ovid’s version of Pygmalion sees Galatea made from ivory which at first glance makes sense. Ivory is a material still associated with luxury due to its history as a sign of wealth, and its colour is perhaps able to pass for the skin complexion of a particularly white human being. It also, a little more worryingly, is soft and warm to the touch, unlike metal or marble. Therefore, it could even pass for living skin, if one wasn’t thinking particularly rationally. However, as Patricia Salzman-Mitchell notes, ivory can only be made from an elephant tusk. It is physically impossible to find one tusk with enough ivory to created a life-sized statue that could, eventually with a little help from the gods, become an actual human woman. Pygmalion’s statue, then, is the sum of many parts, like Frankenstein’s creature.

‘You’d surely suppose her Alive and ready to move, if modesty didn’t preclude it’

L.250-251, Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Rather than being a composite of corpses, Galatea is essentially an amalgamation of different women, all imperfect on their own. Salzman-Mitchell notes that this is a common misogynistic theme in literature: 'the idea is that no woman can be perfect, and real women are all far from the ideal in beauty' (Salzman-Mitchell 307). 

We wish that this notion was an outdated one but, unfortunately, in the art world alone, examples can be found as recently as 2008. In this picture you can see Marc Quinn with one of the sculptures from his 2008-2010 series ‘Sphinx and Siren’ - a commission by the British Museum. It features the head and facial features of British ‘supermodel Kate Moss, who according to Quinn’s website, “became a media icon of our age”. The rest of the yoga-posed figure was a body double with the same sized hands and feet as Moss. Marc Quinn’s website states “Presented in contorted yoga poses, the work explores the idea of Moss as an abstraction, an idealised figure who is more of a cultural hallucination than an actual person of flesh and blood.” And yet, she is an actual person of flesh and blood. She is a woman who has achieved what are to be considered great feats in her chosen career path.  As the online campaign group highlight, “‘female figures are largely semi-clad, often reclining, and typically depict a maternal, saintly or sexualised image of womanhood, rather than worldly achievements’, and this is certainly true of Quinn’s casting.

Quinn’s website continues, ‘by casting this work in gold, Quinn creates an image of the all impossible dreams that lure people to wreck their lives on the rocky shores of reality - the ultimate hallucaition that drives humans to madness.’  The smaller 10kg figure sold for $900,000 in 2011.

www.marcquinn.com/artworks/single/siren1

https://www.invisiblewomen.org.uk

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/kate-moss-in-gold-fetches-900000-siren-by-marc-quinn-2011-10

What might we offer instead? Our Many Margarets Project!

We’re aiming present women, their lives and their achievements in a different way! Our solution to the many sets of questions we have raised is a spectator-initiated excursion experience around Glasgow’s city centre and West End in the summer of next year. We have chosen to focus this performance on artist, architect and designer, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, celebrating her work and life. We plan to station eight costumed female-identifying performers representing Margaret at eight different locations specific to her personal experiences of the city. These performers will present the life and work of Margaret via a combination of a written script and improvised interaction with those who approach her. They will remain at their stations for four hours in the afternoon before congregating in George Square where other artists’ work will be showcased as a celebration of female achievement through the ages!

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day 16 my grandpa was a giant shrimp that got eaten by starving villagers in the year of 684, AD

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day 15

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day 3

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one can only truly "find" themselves when their conscious and unconscious selves merge

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day 1

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