Artist Makes Creepy Self-Portraits Using His Own Frozen Blood - Polidicks

[img]http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17ntnz13lt8anjpg/original.jpg[/img] [quote] Back in 1991, fine artist Marc Quinn, (one of what’s now known as the Young British Artists) started the greatest self-portrait project of all time. Self (1991) © Marc Quinn Self (blood head) is a self portrait that has been cast and frozen, made out of 4.5 litres of Quinn’s own blood, reportedly extracted over a period of about 5 months. And every 5 years, he’s updated the the project with a new version. Over at Marc Quinn’s official website, you can view each blood portrait in exquisite detail by zooming in on the heads. detail of Self (1991) © Marc Quinn. For higher resolution, make sure to view on Quinn's actual site. I say this is the greatest self-portrait of all time, not just for the technical mastery and the visceral material they’re made in: but because without a ‘life-support’ system to frame the frozen blood and keep it frozen, these portraits will one day decay. All portraits will decay eventually, whether by weathered erosion of marble or mouldy canvas or tarnished bronze. By crafting these heads out of his own blood, Quinn reconnects us to the the fact that in the fullness of time, no artist’s attempt at immortality through self-portraiture will prevail. And of course the series will presumably end in the course of the artist’s life, so the artwork’s time-dimension has a death of sorts as well. Self (2006) © Marc Quinn The Self project is a kind of visual onomatopoeia: a self-portrait, made out of the artist himself, through time. But is it the greatest, most appropriately-done self-portrait that ever will be made? I don’t think so. As the sub-field of science-art known as bioart gains traction, I think we could one day see a self-portrait even closer to an individual artist: giant masses of cultured, extracted DNA perhaps; moulded and animated, a moving person in a tank. A sort of mash-up from Quinn’s DNA portrait of geneticist Sir John Sulston and the infamous shark-in-formaldehyde by fellow Young British Artist Damien Hirst. Or perhaps a great-grandchild of a Second Life avatar will appear as the truest, most apt self-portrait of all time. Or perhaps, wonderfully, something unknown, some technique and vision over our horizon that will shock and attract as beautifully as Self continues to do.[/quote] [url]http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/symbiartic/2012/05/20/the-greatest-self-portrait-of-all-time-so-far/[/url] Reminds me of death masks

Have to say, the detail is astounding.

That is fucking scary.

Jesus Christ how horrifying.

saw that last year, its horrifyingly terrific

This was in an old Ripley's Believe it or Not book of mine

God damn, That's pretty amazing actually, I mean it looks just like him.

I always love it when artists put themselves into their work. Bloody amazing.

[QUOTE=ExplodingGuy;36098101]I always love it when artists put themselves into their work. Bloody amazing.[/QUOTE] A little forced, but well played, my friend. :golfclap:

The detail is so precise you can even see the goosebumps on his skin. Crazy.

[QUOTE=Conspiracy;36099965]The detail is so precise you can even see the goosebumps on his skin. Crazy.[/QUOTE] Considering he molded his own head rather than carving it, it's not all that crazy.

That thin line between genius and madness, that's where this thing stands.

for some reason I expected the images in the article to be gifs that move after a while that would be so perfect :v:

That's fucking metal right there.

ART.

bloody brilliant

It's an interesting concept, creepy. He didn't actually sculpt it, though, he just executed his idea. He took a life cast of his own face, that's why there are all those strange drips and weird seams. There is a special type of plaster that is safe to use on skin, and they just cover your face with it, let it harden, then split it down the middle and then cast it into a permanent cast. The casts always look just like that - I've done it firsthand in the studio with hands, feet, heads. I'm just saying this to clear up any misconceptions, it doesn't seem like the artist's intentions were to be a sculptor, more about a social statement.

Imagine if the freezer broke and it started melting

gross

a mold of my cock with frozen jizz

Not sure if I'm going to feel faint or be impressed when this hits me.

[QUOTE=cdejong;36101285]It's an interesting concept, creepy. He didn't actually sculpt it, though, he just executed his idea. He took a life cast of his own face, that's why there are all those strange drips and weird seams. There is a special type of plaster that is safe to use on skin, and they just cover your face with it, let it harden, then split it down the middle and then cast it into a permanent cast. The casts always look just like that - I've done it firsthand in the studio with hands, feet, heads. I'm just saying this to clear up any misconceptions, it doesn't seem like the artist's intentions were to be a sculptor, more about a social statement.[/QUOTE] What kind of social statement would a blood head make?

[QUOTE=Mr. Smartass;36105103]What kind of social statement would a blood head make?[/QUOTE] you could think about how we know many artists only through their self-portraits and nothing else, and how that doesn't really paint a real portrait of a tangible human being who will die.

[QUOTE=Mr. Smartass;36105103]What kind of social statement would a blood head make?[/QUOTE] "I'm a fucking nutter"

this reminds me so much of rammstein's various covers to their best of album [img]http://www.musicreview.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Rammstein_Made-in-Germany.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=FFStudios;36117513]this reminds me so much of rammstein's various covers to their best of album [img]http://www.musicreview.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Rammstein_Made-in-Germany.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] knowing Rammstein that cast is probably made of fake jizz or something

Popsicle.