COLOSSAL: MALEVICH/
MAPPLETHORPE
2018
Two framed photographic inkjet prints. Each frame 106 cm x 106 cm.
Finding ways to convey the presence of the void and knowledge of death, Colossal uses two titans of art history to physicalise human consciousness of mortality.
Malevich uses the format of the black square as a framing device for a tiny self-portrait, while Mapplethorpe recreates Robert Mapplethorpe’s Self Portrait, 1975 (an image that Roland Barthes considers to contain the quintessence of eroticism and life) with an inset section of darkness.
The works speak to each other across the gallery space, trading heaviness and lightness, as a contemporary memento mori.
Frames constructed by Andrew McDonald.