Self - critics

• Priscilla Franck - made of artist?


  "What happens when a self portrait is not just of the artists but made of the artist?"
• Marc Quinn - substance and pure


  "it's made from the substance of me; and so I think of it as the purest form of sculpture"
• Marc Quinn - life and blood

  • he thinks of this piece "about life rather than death"
  • Blood and "the way it renews itself; it's not like chopping a limb off"
• James Romaine - blood outside body 


  "Blood outside of the body evokes woundedness, even death"
• James Romaine - ancient 


  "The encasement of the blood head gives it an ancient appearance"
• James Romaine - not for shock - meaning comes from material and representation


  "...the use of blood is not a shock tactic. The meaning of the work comes from the exchange between its material substance and its representational form."
• James Romaine - marble is mortality 


  "A marble bust would have implied immortality; Self is a portrait of mortality"
• James Romaine - body and soul 


  "an interest in the relationship between the mortal body and imperishable soul"
• James Romaine - life and death real 


  "actualises the matter of life and death, making the frailty and decay of our bodies visible and palpable"
• James Romaine - aesthetic and mortality 


  "practise an aesthetics of mortality"
• James Romaine - like and death as a distance 


  "Self is disconcerting because it touches on issues of life and death that we would like too keep at a distance"
• Will Self - dependence 


  "Certainly Self is about the idea of dependence; that just as the addict is dependent on his drug, so the blood head cannot survive without electricity"
• Julian Stallabrass


  all the details - "gives the impression of tremendous age, as if it were some unearthed ancient artefact"
• James Romaine - encasement is essential 


  the encasement is like 'life-support' - both 'visually and conceptually essential'
• Will Self - dependent

  'the idea of dependence'
• James Romaine 


  Quinn practises 'aesthetics of mortality '
• Will Self - purest form 


  'purest form of sculpture - to sculpt your own body, from your own body'