Bronze and marble sculptures of tattooed transgenders and the biggest breasts in the world are on show at Marc Quinn's latest White Cube show.
Walking into Marc Quinn's latest exhibition at White Cube, Allanah, Buck, Catman, Chelsea, Michael, Pamela and Thomas, something's not quite right. I'm surrounded by the bronze figures standing, posing and riding each other like exhibits in an Amsterdam pleasure show. There's Dennis Avner, aka 'Catman' the human feline hybrid, who has had black and white stripes tattooed all over his body, teeth filed to sharpened fangs and fibreglass whiskers permanently attached to his face, and Thomas Beatie, the man who got pregnant while undergoing a gender reassignment. Then there's the more mainstream faces and bosoms of pop culture: Pamela Anderson and Michael Jackson and porn stars Buck (man with vagina), Allanah Star (woman with penis) and Chelsea Charms (reportedly the woman with the biggest breasts in the world ).
It's at once an unexpected ensemble – the risqué sculptures arranged in front of a series of vibrant psychedelic flower paintings – and shocking too. Shocking because the figures I'm confronted with haven't just been conjured up by Quinn in some kind of hormone therapy, plastic surgery, skin bleaching freak show; they are real life people, who really look like this. And have chosen to look like this.
On entering the main room, Buck greets us In Ecstasy. His truncated bronze torso sits, teeming with calligraphy markings criss-crossed up his back, his rough stubbled face is turned upwards, eyes closed, deep in orgasmic throes of some kind. All is well except for the woman's hand, with long, polished, manicured nails that creeps up across his back. This hand begins to make more sense when I later spy his fully exposed lady nether regions. Chomping on a fat cigar in Buck with Cigar – wonder what Freud would make of that one – Buck poses with his rather disproportionately small hands on hips, an intricate, looping tattoo drawing attention to his vagina.
Next time I see Buck, he's with playmate and fellow porn star, Allanah Star, a man who has undergone botox and breast implants to transform her body into an idealised version of woman, albeit forgetting to do something with that tell-tale penis. In Buck & Allanah the two stand hand in hand, vacantly staring out, innocent like a naked Adam and Eve in front of a trippy flower painting. But like Adam and Eve you know the fall is imminent: the sight of the two bronzed beauties writhing around on the floor having sex, Allanah behind, makes sure of that. It takes a while to register. A woman with a penis is having sex with a man with a vagina from behind. It's all very confusing and strange and a bit outrageous.
Other sculptures tease us in a similar way – we think we know what we're getting but then realise we're very much mistaken. From behind, save the crumpled boxer shorts, Thomas Beatie looks the epitome of masculinity, like a Greek Adonis towering tall and mighty in white marble on his plinth. But turn to the front and you'll get a unnerving view of his swollen, heavily pregnant belly. The marble Chelsea Charms is just as guilty of not being the Grecian goddess her demurely flowing robes and sandled feet propose. Her enormous breasts totally dominate her delicate frame, each 13 pounder (no joke) held up and caressed by a stray hand, hair tussled, as she poses ready and waiting for page 3 glory.
There are a few clever duplicates too, like Man in the Mirror – a pair of Michael Jackson heads, one white with black hair, the second the monochrome reversal, sitting at opposite corners of the room. Upstairs, the brilliantly titled The Ecstatic Autogenesis of Pamela, two seemingly identical depictions of the bronzed Baywatch star, pose vacantly. Everything looks incredibly fake, from the perfectly rounded, perfectly pert double Ds spilling out over the balconette bra top, to the streaked, fake tan quality of the lacquered bronze itself. As Pamela admits, “ I didn't even ask what Marc wanted to do with me. I would have done anything. I like that [the finished sculpture] is raw. Not perfect. I think that's what makes it interesting. Sexy isn't perfect.” No Pammie, sexy isn't perfect but it sure is strange what some people think is.
Allanah, Buck, Catman, Chelsea, Michael, Pamela and Thomas is at White Cube, Hoxton Square 7th May -26th June.
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Image Courtesy (from top to bottom):
Marc Quinn, Man in the Mirror (Monochrome Reversal), 2010,White Bianco P marble & black Belgian marble, Dimensions to be confirmed, © the artist, Photo: Roger Wooldridge, Courtesy White Cube
Marc Quinn, Chelsea Charms, 2009, Marble,66 3/4 x 23 1/4 x 20 1/2 in. (169.5 x 59 x 52 cm)© the artist, Photo: Roger Wooldridge, Courtesy White Cube
Marc Quinn, Buck & Allanah, 2009, Orbital sanded and flap wheeled lacquered bronze, 65 3/4 x 41 5/16 x 17 11/16 in. (167 x 105 x 45 cm), © the artist, Photo: Roger Wooldridge, Courtesy White Cube
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