Yale Museum Shows Works By British Artist Mark Quinn, Including A Bust Containing 10 Pints Of His Blood

The Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Conn., is currently showing works by contemporary British artist Mark Quinn, including six modern history paintings on display with paintings from its collection by J.M.W. Turner, Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough.

The museum said the works of Quinn, who was born in 1964, form “meaningful connections with art history and (reflect) on human experience. Quinn seeks to make sense of the world by focusing on ideas about science, mortality, survival and the environment.”

The exhibition begins in the museum’s entrance court with Self 1991 (1991). Cast from a mold taken directly from Quinn’s head, it is made from ten pints of his blood, which the museum said is approximately the same volume of blood that circulates through the human body.

“For Quinn,” the museum said, “the use of blood enables him to create a higher level of portraiture, in which his likeness is composed of a part of his own body. Described by the artist as a ‘sculpture on life support,’ Self relies on constant refrigeration to maintain its form. A metaphor for human fragility and physical deterioration, it both evokes and upends the traditional role of the portrait bust as a symbol of immortality.”

On the fourth floor are four works from Quinn’s history painting series—each of which took over a decade to make—on display with the museum’s historical collections.

According to museum, “Traditional history paintings fictionalized depictions of contemporary events to glorify nation and empire. In Quinn’s History Painting series, the artist inverts the genre by foregrounding civilians engaged in anti-government protests around the world. His photo-realist canvases reimagine iconic images from Associated Press, Getty, and Reuters, such as Vasily Maximov’s photograph of the burning ‘battlefield’ of Kyiv for Time magazine in 2014, and Jonathan Bachman’s photo of Ieshia Evans facing police in Baton Rouge following the killing of Alton Sterling in 2016. Because of widescale media distribution, images of ordinary people take on immense and unprecedented political agency and power.”

Also on display is Thames River Water Atlas (2017), a sculpture conceived as an artist’s book. The museum said the work “considers humanity’s relationship with and impact on the environment. (incorporating) traces of detritus found at the edges of the Thames and impressions of water drains in London’s streets.”

“Marc Quinn offers a contemporary comment on the British artistic traditions, such as landscape and history painting, which are well-represented in the museum’s collection,” said Courtney J. Martin, Paul Mellon Director, Yale Center for British Art.

Quinn’s exhibition will be on display through October 16.