[26], Slumber is a performance piece which stretched over the course of many weeks. If I can stay open and have the courage not to hang on to my original idea, the material starts to speak back and tell me what it wants to be. Context Put Gnaw in context. All rights reserved. [22] In this work, Antoni addresses the transformation in cultural acceptance of feminine desire and sexuality. Her difficulty acclimating to American society is what drove her to use her body as a tool, as she felt her body language made her stand out.[8]. And in Greece, the public made a connection between the loom and Penelope. I could have tried to force it, but what happened was so much more beautiful than I could have ever predicted. Richard Serra. In loss desire Antoni used chewed parts from one of her sculptures to create another sculpture. The works that I really love are things like Carolee SchneemannsMeat Joyor Joseph BeuyssI Love America and America Loves Me, or Chris Burden having himself shot. Antoni literally then gnawed away at each but, and this disappointed me slightly when I realised, she didnt actually eat the bits that shed managed to extract with her teeth (I was in awe of her eating lard and perhaps a little jealous of the huge block of chocolate). Yes, and the copper seemed to bring it all together. I could not find much about the public opinion of her, which might mean she is not extremely well known or doesn't make a huge impact, either positive or negative, on the viewers. Antoni nibbled the corners to create the image and incorporated it into the piece. Called Wean, 1990, it drew attention to her interest in finding ways to represent the various stages of separation from her own mother, and to articulate that relationship through a form of absence. Modeling. She wanted to prove that sculpting was not necessarily an act of the hands, and she created pieces that resembled the textures of the materials used in her work. Janine Antoni, left:Gnaw, 1992, 600 pounds of chocolate, gnawed by the artist, 24 24 24 inches; right:Gnaw, 1992, 600 pounds of lard before biting. greenish-blue finish on bronze or copper due to oxidation. In a way what she did was an extension of my work. I try to do that in a lot of different ways, by residue, by touch, by these processes that are basic to all of our lives that people might relate to in terms of process everyday activities--bathing, eating, etc. Is it an aggressive act? [9] This particular work was seen as a tableau vivant because of its spectacle aspect: The aspirational focus of this tableau vivant, while situating the artist as an object on view, simulataneously [sic] insists on an aesthetics of connections: between the artist and beholders, between the artists [sic] and the art institutions, and between the artist's conscious and unconscious processes.[9]. Janine Antoni, Gnaw, 1992, installed at Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York. Antoni, who turned 29 that year, threw her whole self into the process, using her lips, lashes, and hair in performative, arduous, and absurdist send-ups of female obsessions and macho art. . When Janine Antoni performed Loving Care in 1993, she moved herself into the history of contemporary art, and she has occupied that place ever since. SHI think there is something about our ability to visit those pieces in our minds, and maybe even to misread them so that we can use them without being burdened by what they actually were. Its interesting to think about it in that way. Im always interviewing those around me; and trying to understand how people see the work. SHMuch of your art has this condition. This made me rethink the piece; its about how some parts of us are stronger than others, and how in relationships there is a balance between the strong parts and the weak parts. Calculating Percentages Whats Two Percent of Twelve? Her work is a hybrid of post-'80s ambition and feminist thinking. I would say that I start with setting an intention and then pay close attention to what is happening. I then made a photograph of me actually using it. Gnaw, however, is as much a work of art about art his-tory as it is about desire. Context encourages me to make different kinds of work; its another way to stretch. The most fascinating was how self-revelatory people were. "By the time you take out the fat and the sugar, you might as well make it a bronze." -Janine Antoni- The End 600 lbs. In her installation Slumber (1994), Antoni slept in the gallery for 28 days and while she slept, an EEG machine recorded her REM patterns, which she then wove into a blanket from the night gown under which she slept. It is strange that in the end I got access to the Chrysler Building because its bird is not so different from my bird, although I made Conduit long before I knew where I was going to take the photograph. Antoni explains this desire to be involved in the viewer's experience when she writes: [Performance] wasn't something that I intended to do. The griffin is itself a hybrid of a lion and a bird. SHWere about the same age and I have the feeling that I was at AcconcisSeed Bed! In 1986, Antoni earned a BA from Sarah Lawrence College in New York. SHWhere does the interest or focus on empathy come from? In my old way of working, I would have been so set on what I concluded from those mock-ups that I wouldnt have noticed this crazy thing that happened with my hair. It assists viewers in understanding the narrative. Gone are the movements and markings of her own body. its really a pretty complex relationship. Using her mouth as a tool, Antoni nibbled the corners of both cubes, leaving visible teeth marks in the material. Viewers are used to having this private experience with the work and it is intimidating to have the artist present. JASlumberwas the most interesting experience in understanding the audience because I showed that piece around the world. Gnaw. Open Access Institutional Repository of Georgia State University All photos courtesy of Luhring Augustine. Gnaw, 1992); the absent body, gender roles, and the oral focus are recurring issues in her work. Janine AntoniWhen you are with my objects you are with something I have, literally, been intimate with. She lived with us and Alvin lived with us. One Another came first. That inescapable condition of being alivethat we visit damage on others and damage visits us in turnmay well be the cause of the tear in the magnificent eye that occupied the gallery for two months last fall. In the end room, all is revealed, but its backwards and Im aware that it is a construction. Around the same time, my brother used to tell me about the joys of peeing from high places. 2038 is a strangely moving variation on the theme of the pieta. . You want to what! When I first heard about Gnaw Janine Antonis 1993 installation I have to confess that I thought she had basically eaten as much chocolate as she could and whacked the remaining (huge) block of it on a marble pedestal. The issues of codependency, physical and emotional force operating on two entities. . ] If she falls down, she wants to put her finger there for comfort, like a security blanket. It always becomes about ones projection. . Its luxurious, the velvet is sexy, this red-folded glowing material . I start from that place. As a mother, you have to be flexible, spontaneous and responsive in the moment. By imagining me, the viewers experience turns out to be about their own wish fulfillment. From these words make a map that will help you find content and subtext. I call it my bedside manner. [3] In 1977, she moved to Florida for attending her boarding school. She arrived on the scene withGnaw, two 600 pound minimal cubes (one chocolate, one lard) that she aggressively bit into eroded architectural fragments, using the mouthfuls to generate other objects (45 heart-shaped chocolate packages, and 400 pigmented lipsticks). Janine Antoni is a Bahamian contemporary artist who works with different materials, such as soap, lard, and chocolate. JAThe first time I didLoving Care, it was not a performance; I did it as a relic and I showed it that way. Antoni's Gnaw (1992), is an example of the artist using her body as a tool for sculpture. When you use the word relic, that is an appropriate term, because these works allow one to project histories onto them and they set the terms of that projection. The first time I showedSlumberwas in London and because the English have a great knowledge of literature they came to it from that angle. [20], In Loving Care (1993), Antoni used her hair as a paintbrush and Loving Care hair dye as her paint. In some ways, she has become the bad girl of 21st-century art, making provocative sculptures and photographs that address the public in direct, personal ways. Gnaw began life as a pair of large cubes, one of chocolate, one of lard, each weighing in at 600 pounds. . SHThinking about work that doesnt use your body as an instrument, how do you plan to make future pieces? My contemporary version incorporates the polysomnograph. Why is the Buddha considered to have conventions of iconography? There was this one woman who said, Get out of the way. Her words still ring in my mind. SHThe piece in Harlem is very connected to your better-known works, pieces involving transformation and removal. I am exploring how to communicate through experience. Gnaw began life as a pair of large cubes, one of chocolate, one of lard, each weighing in at 600 pounds . The key word for me isempathy. SHIt sounds very much like the dancers inSwoon. Inhabit, 1009, digital c-print, 116-1/2 x 72. The information they store is not sent to Pixel & Tonic or any 3rd parties. And two, your comment that if the object doesnt change me, then its not finished.. Antoni's work focuses on process and the transitions between the making and finished product, often portraying feminist ideals. SHA barrage of questions: What are you reading? I wanted to work with an evolution that begins with the body and works its way into the culture. Im interested in how stories get passed down. of chocolate gnawed by the artist; 600 lbs. What I remember is that she was able to get away with it because she had an apparatus for peeing while standing up. Janine Antoni,Beatrice Thomas, 1996, abandoned building, paint, drywall, linoleum, extension cord, light bulb. Right. I really believe that you learn most from your failures; you have to allow yourself to fail. The viewers can be analytical, but about their own responses. JANINE ANTONI: Her name is Maria. Photographed by John Bessler. The duration of the act is very logical. If you wanted something to ponder once you have the pronunciation of phenethylamine perfected, Gnaw is definitely food for thought. When I saw it I thought, Theres some potential here. Believe it or not, there are other designs like the WhizBiz or the Shewee, but I modelled the gargoyle using the Travel Mate as its inner core. It may be you washing yourself away, both loving and destroying, or the moment when a self-representation moves awayis no longer there. Janine Antoni Gnaw, 1992 . She was the first woman artist to have a retrospective at the MoMA in 1982. It didnt work! Combining performance and sculpture, she investigates such everyday activities as eating and sleeping. A professional window cleaner harnessed us up, so what you dont see is that I have a harness that goes under my dress. I meant it to be very personal. Gnaw (1992) - Janine Antoni Heart shaped packages and Lipsticks "I feel it's not chocolate without fat," she says. Im much more interested in the viewer empathizing with my process. | By Art21 | Facebook | And that's why I do these kind of extreme acts with my body. We have a better understanding of how information makes its way into the world. Janine Antoni, Gnaw, 2002, installation with chocolate and lard. JAThe work has become more and more about myself as a way to protect myself. This artwork explores a number of topics, including the cult of beauty, consumer culture, and art history. Youve had tremendous opportunities for the work and you have been able to use them to scale up and scale down your practice, which I think is the only way to keep options open and let them feed you. Her body is both her tool for making and the source from which her meaning arises. And they talked about the history of work being destroyed, like the Pieta. Hopefully,its in the privacy of your own studio, but not always. Sassy art historian with a mission to put the story into art history. 1964) is a performance artist, sculptor, and photographer who often explores the transitions between making and finished producta focus that results in sculptural installations that appear both static and revelatory of the artist's creative process. Antoni refers to it as "a mouth-made ready-made." Her logic in this early work was simple: if her mouth was the hammer and chisel in Gnaw, then in Loving Care her hair could be a paintbrush. The association is apt; as a woman artist Antoni was mimicking the making of an action painting and claiming a piece of the territory that had been occupied primarily by male artists. The two cubes were displayed in an evocative room filled with mirrored shelves. So it seems to be a recurring response. 600600Janine . In the way that weve claimed some of these seminal performance pieces from 30-odd years ago, and used them to empower us. Antoni's works focus mostly on process and the transitions between the making and finished product. The following interview was conducted in Janine Antonis studio in Brooklyn in October 2009. Annually, BOMB serves 1.5 million online readers44% of whom are under 30 years of age. JAWell, the Shaker experienceI lived and worked in a Shaker community for a monthis definitely a model. Even now, at five, she still likes to sleep with her finger in it. SHOne of the things that impresses me aboutSwoonis how much in keeping it is with the spirit of your other work. Why does William Hogarth use iconography in The Harlot's Progress? On the other side the rocks touch ever so gently. In Catholicism there is the idea that the Virgin is the church. Join our newsletter for a weekly update of recent highlights and upcoming events. . She is known for transforming materials like chocolate, soap, limestone, cowhide, and clay by using unusual art-making processes such as eating, bathing, grinding, mopping, and sleeping. Janine Antoni, Gnaw, 1992. Request Permissions, Published By: University of California Press. This essay will argue that Antoni's performance is a self-conscious reiteration (and exaggeration) of feminine convention. Established styles have been passed down for centuries. So its clear that Antoni has a message here, and to me shes asking questions about what it means to be a woman both with desires and who is, and wants to be, desired. The materials used in Janine Antonis gnaw are quite peculiar. I start out with an idea of what I want the object to be, and I try to impose it on the material. Because a lot of my work is repetitive and accumulative, many people ask me, When do you know something is done? It has nothing to do with the way it looks or formal composition. 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