Reference in show and listen- Janine Antoni

Gnaw 1992

Three-part installation: 600 lbs. of chocolate gnawed by the artist; 600 lbs. of lard gnawed by the artist; display with 130 lipsticks made with pigment, beeswax, and chewed lard removed from the lard cube; 27 heart-shaped packages made from the chewed chocolate removed from the chocolate cube

As she did in “Gnaw”, Antoni used her body as a tool and immersed herself physically into her work, “With Gnaw I was thinking about traditional sculpture, about carving. I was also interested in figurative sculpture. I put those two ideas together and decided that rather than describing the body, I would use the body, my body, as a tool for making art." (Antoni). 

Janine Antoni: When I conceived of Gnaw I actually wanted to do the most traditional thing I could do as an artist, believe it or not; I wanted to carve. I was also interested in the tradition of figurative sculpture, but rather than to describe the body, I decided to talk about the body by the residue it left on the object. And so to bring these two ideas together, and use my body as the tool. So rather than use a hammer and chisel, I would use my mouth. I was very interested in every day activities, like the activity of eating. So, I said to myself, if I'm going to carve with my mouth, what's the best material to carve with? And chocolate seemed like the obvious choice.

It seemed to embody desire for the viewer, and what happens if you succumb to that desire? You get fat. So I used fat as the material to make the second cube—the 500–pound cube of lard. The lard will begin as a cube and as the exhibition goes on, it will collapse onto the floor. I was interested in working with the cube because it was a kind of icon of Minimalism. Minimalism really introduced fabrication to us, and what I was taught by Minimalism is that not only the material had meaning, but the process in which it was made. So, my cubes are poured, chewed, spit out, melted down and recast. They've really been in intimate contact with my body and really carry the traces of my body on them.

I chewed on the chocolate cube for about a month and a half. The chocolate that I spit out I melted down and recast into heart–shaped packaging for chocolate candy. The lard that I spit out I cast into lipstick by mixing it with pigmented beeswax. Then I made this display, trying to imitate a department store to put all my products in. I was sort of interested in how you were overcome with desire for the chocolate, you were kind of disgusted by the lard, and then I would turn around and take that very material that was disgusting to you and make it into lipstick which we use to make ourselves attractive.

Chewing on the lard wasn't a pleasant experience, but I'm really interested in the viewer empathizing with my process and I feel that somewhere in your body you can imagine what it's like to chew on 600 pounds of chocolate or chew on lard, and I'm very aware of the kind of visceral response you have to that. And I'm really trying to play those up against each other and then have you walk in this display and be seduced by these objects. But with the memory of where the came from.

I chose the packaging, the heart–shaped packaging for chocolate candy, because I feel that packaging embodies our time in a way, because it seems that more attention is put into the packaging of an object than the object itself. When you buy cosmetics, the expensive part is the packaging, but more importantly is this notion of using lipstick to package the body.

I call the piece Gnaw because I'm interested in the bite as a kind of primal urge. I love to look at a little baby when they put everything in their mouth in order to know it, and through that process, they destroy it. I was interested in the bite because it was both intimate and destructive. It summed up my relationship to art history. I feel attached to my artistic heritage and I want to destroy it. It defined me as an artist, and it excludes me as a woman, both at the same time.

 

 

 Lick and Lather 1993-1994

sculpture | chocolate and soap

In this piece, Antoni cast her portrait busts using chocolate and soap. She repeatedly licked her cast chocolate until her facial features faded and bathed with her soap portrait heads, like washing herself with herself.

Here she made a statement that describes these pieces.

"I wanted to work with the tradition of self-portraiture but also with the classical bust...I had the idea that I would make a replica of myself in chocolate and in soap, and I would feed myself with my self, and wash myself with my self. Both the licking and the bathing are quite gentle and loving acts, but what’s interesting is that I’m slowly erasing myself through the process. So for me it’s about that conflict, that love/hate relationship we have with our physical appearance, and the problem I have with looking in the mirror and thinking, ‘Is that who I am?’"

 

Saddle 2000

 More recent work, “Saddle” created in 2000, is a ghost-like mold of Antoni’s body, cast out of cowhide. It too speaks about consumerism in popular culture as much as it does about living and dying, sensuality, and the body. I personally find this piece to be really thought provoking because of its grotesque quality.

Eureka 1993

Bathtub, lard and soap; made from lard displaced by artist's body

 

Unbilical 

I read that Janine Antoni is very involved in her work and uses her body many times. This is a cast of the inside of her mouth with a spoon cast in the Antoni silver in her mouth held by a cast of her mother's hand. 

 

 Wean 1989

Her installation of “Wean” in 1989 is made up of six impressions of her own nipple as well as superficial baby bottle nipples, and the packaging for the fake nipples. The impressions start from the left with her breast and nipple and move toward the right with the foe nipples and finally the packaging. In this piece she discussed how babies and their mothers separate from one another, and as they become distanced they are forced into culture full of “substitutions”. Her work also discusses how the female body becomes objectified, and made into a latex form.