Patricia Piccinini (b. 1965) is an important voice in international contemporary art. Her artistic universe, which is populated by cellular, fabulous and machine creatures, introduces us to a variety of future scenarios, where the boundaries between the cultural and the natural are blurred.
The Struggle (2017), which has now been added to ARKEN’s permanent collection with support from the New Carlsberg Foundation, presents two unsettling anthropomorphic scooters that have mutated into hybrid creatures locked in a life-and-death struggle.
Nature versus technology
The motif is based on a familiar scenario from nature: a hungry, leonine animal is ready to take down its prey, a doe-like creature that is just about to realize its fate. Piccinini drew inspiration from the dramatic series of lions and horses in works by the romantic painter George Stubbs (1724–1806). However, although the motif of fighting animals is well known from art history, the work has an alien character. The two hybrid creatures are simultaneously animal and technological, and their life-like appearance sparks fascination and wonder. The work thus examines how we live and build relations in a high-tech era when the natural and the cultural mutate and intermingle in novel ways.
Post-pop tradition
The glistening materials position the work in a post-pop tradition where seductive high-gloss surfaces are associated with consumer culture and an affinity for static finesse and beauty. By means of post-pop and hyper-realism Piccinini invites us into a life-like world where we encounter ourselves in relation to new life forms. A world where humanity lives side by side with hybrid life forms that combine human, machine and animal features.
Upcoming exhibition
In 2019 the work is displayed as part of ARKEN’s large, sensuous solo exhibition – the first to present Piccinini’s oeuvre in a Danish museum setting. The exhibition forms an extension of the existing exploration of ecology and the Anthropocene that ARKEN has pursued in the previous exhibitions GOSH! Is it Alive?, NATURE (RE)TURNS and the present Dear Planet.
About Patricia Piccinini
Patricia Piccinini (b. 1965) was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in West Africa. Today she lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She has a bachelor’s degree in economic history from the Australian National University and a bachelor’s degree in visual art from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. Piccinini has exhibited around the world in solo and group exhibitions and is represented in a number of museum collections, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, DC), the Thomas Olbricht Collection (Berlin), the Middelheim Museum (Antwerp), the National Gallery of Australia and Queensland Art Gallery. Piccinini represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 2003.
