| ART:21: |
Let's talk about your sculpture
"Lick and Lather" How was it made?
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| ANTONI: |
I wanted to work with the tradition
of self-portraiture but also the classical bust. So the way
I made it is I took a mold directly from my body. I used a
product called alginate, which is the kind of material that
you might be familiar with when you go to the dentist. That
sort of minty tasting stuff. It’s an incredible product
because it gets every detail, every little pore. I even casted
my hair. So I started with an exact replica and then I carved
the classical stand. I made a mold, melted down thirty-five
pounds of chocolate, poured it into the mold, and when I took
it out of the mold I resculpted my image by licking the chocolate.
So you can see that I licked up the front and through the
mouth up onto the nose, over the eye and back up over the
ear onto the bun and then down in the back around the neck.
I also casted myself into soap. She started as an exact replica
of myself. We spent a few hours in the tub together. I slowly
washed her down and she becomes almost fetal because all her
features start to be washed away. So I was thinking about
how one describes the self and feeling a little uncomfortable
with my outer surface as the description of myself. And this
piece very much is about trying to be on the outside of myself
and have a relationship with my image. So the process is quite
loving. Of course chocolate is a highly desirable material
and to lick myself in chocolate is a kind of tender gesture.
Having the soap in the tub was like having a little baby in
there. But through that process I’m slowly erasing myself.
For me it really is about this kind of love-hate relationship
we have with our physical appearance.
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| ART:21: |
Is it also erotic?
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| ANTONI: |
Yes, well, the thing about chocolate
is that it has the product fenylamine in it. That product
is the chemical that’s produced in our body when we’re
in love. So I think that’s why chocolate is so addictive.
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| ART:21: |
Is there something humorous about
this piece?
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| ANTONI: |
I think what’s humorous
about the piece is that I’m playing with a tradition
of the classical bust, which is very serious. And I asked
myself some questions about why, traditionally, would artists
want to make a self-portrait. And I came up with a few answers
for myself.
The first one is to immortalize yourself. But of course my
materials are ephemeral, so I’m kind of trying to work
against the grain of that. And it was a funny thing because
I conceived the piece to be in the Venice Biennial and I knew
that there would be classical sculpture everywhere. And I
arrive in Venice, and as you probably know Venice is totally
eroding. I came upon these stone sculptures and they looked
very much like my soap head, because the features had been
washed away. And I thought to myself, what does that say about
our mortality that even stone has a lifespan?
And then the other answer I gave myself about why make a self-portrait
is this idea of creating a public image of yourself. An image
that you were presenting to the world. And I guess my question
was—is that an accurate description of the self? And
are we more ourselves alone at home eating a meal or in the
bathtub, in these everyday activities? So that’s where
I got the idea to work with the chocolate and the soap.
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| ART:21: |
Can you talk about the arduous
quality of making the piece?
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| ANTONI: |
Yes, it took a long time to
make the pieces. We spent several hours in the tub together.
And I think what’s important about that is that we were
very intimate with each other. And my hope is that you as
a viewer can feel that intimacy. That’s what a portrait
is — a way of getting close to the person that it’s
depicting.
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| ART:21: |
And beauty?
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| ANTONI: |
In terms of the classical bust,
an issue that my work deals with a lot is the idea of woman
and beauty. And thinking about how women have been depicted
traditionally in sculpture and trying to take that on... There’s
something quite startling about the erasure of my process.
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| ART:21: |
And also the classical bust is
traditionally a man...
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| ANTONI: |
The thing about the classical
bust is it’s usually reserved for depicting men and usually
very powerful men. And then when we see women in classical
sculpture they depict hope and charity and love. I was particularly
conscious of that when I made the bust and thinking about
this act of erasure of this specific personality. With this
particular bust here, I licked the chocolate and I licked
right up the front and over the cheek. I also licked the eye
and the lips and nose. And then I came around and licked you
know over the ear and back onto the bun. And then I thought
it would be nice to just lick under the nape of the neck,
along up under the ear on the other side. It's modeling in
the sense that when you carve, you start with a block and
you remove from it. But what I’m doing is starting from
a representation of myself and then removing from it. |
| ART:21: |
What does the removal process
signify for you?
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| ANTONI: |
I think it’s a funny thing
when you think about the creative process and what we go through
when we’re making a work. A lot of times there’s
this element of destruction. That we have to kind of unmake
in order to make. And that interests me very much. And also
working from very basic materials. I’m also thinking
a lot about this idea that there’s this kind of relationship
between me and her that I’m literally feeding myself
with myself and washing myself with myself. So there’s
this circular narrative that’s happening.
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| ART:21: |
Is there a ritualistic aspect?
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| ANTONI: |
Sure...I was thinking of everyday
rituals like eating and bathing. But also other rituals. Certainly
the Eucharist is about eating the body, so that also comes
to mind.
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| ART:21: |
How do you decide to shape a
bust this way and not that? Is it simply intuitive?
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| ANTONI: |
In terms of the creative process
I think that I begin with a kind of conceptual structure.
That I know to lick myself in chocolate means something, or
to wash myself in soap means something. When I feel sort of
comfortable with the security of a very, hopefully, rigorous
conceptual structure, then I can actually let go of that kind
of thinking. And when I go to wash or lick I’m not necessarily
thinking about if I lick this area it means one thing or another,
but really trying to get intimate with the process so a kind
of surprise happens, especially with the soap bust. You know,
I’m in the tub and all of a sudden this person appears
to me and I’m not sure if she’s a relative or an
alter-ego, but she’s related and yet different. And there’s
something so beautiful about that process that lets her evolve
through the process.
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| ART:21: |
There's something happening in
the actions you're performing...
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| ANTONI: |
I think that because the process
is so sort of gentle and loving, there is some kind of idea
of self-love. You know of trying to come to terms with that
surface being you. I think that, and I don’t know about
you, but when I look in the mirror I don’t really recognize
myself. I somehow see myself as I was as a little girl or
in other manifestations of myself. So it’s always this
contemplative moment of trying to come to terms with what
I see and how that relates to what I feel inside and trying
to bring those two things together. So I think with this whole
process, you can imagine how jarring it is or how peculiar
it is to lick yourself. It’s like being your own lover.
Like putting yourself in the position of your lover and trying
to understand what they’re seeing when they look at you.
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| ART:21: |
Do you feel closer to the chocolate
or the soap busts?
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| ANTONI: |
I really feel close to the soap
bust because we spent a lot of time in the tub together. And
I just sort of rub her all over and you know she sort of smooths
down and then she becomes almost fetal. It’s really quite
a nice process. And it’s interesting to think about cleaning
and purity. And just washing as a kind of ritual and its bigger
meaning. I think this idea of cleaning is associated with
purity.
I think I was thinking about purity in terms of woman, and
that is a kind of idealized state which of course is in contrast
to the chocolate. Another way that women have been thought
about is in terms of desire. So the work is about looking
at the flip side of those two states and not feeling comfortable
with either.
The brown and white, really with all my work, it comes from
the material. So I’m not so much thinking of myself in
a dark color and myself in a white color. I’m thinking
of myself in chocolate and myself in soap. But there is something
beautiful about the way that in her purity she disappears.
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| ART:21: |
Is there something about casting,
in particular, that you enjoy? You seem to come back to that
process in your work a lot.
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| ANTONI: |
I don't know, I can think of
a lot of things that aren't done that way. Certainly you have
your skills and your knowledge and you use it, and maybe there
are many different ways to make an object but you use the
experience that you've had. So there are certain processes
which seem to come back. I was just talking to Melissa about
this this morning. We were moving some plywood around, and
I'm like, "Why are we always making these diving boards?"
Like the way we made the rope and then we use the same sawhorses
to make the other piece. And I think we were talking about
that, how there is this kind of repertoire that you come back
to.
With mold making it's just that you look around and most of
the objects around us are made that way. And because I am
always trying to replicate or in some way work with everyday
objects, everyday materials, I find myself there a lot. Also
I am trying to make an everyday object out of another kind
of material, so that casting it into that shape makes sense.
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| ART:21: |
Is casting a ritual for you as
well? Like transformation or transubstanstiation?
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| ANTONI: |
I was saying the mold making
was about imitation, like I was trying to imitate these things
from the world. For me the transformation happens somehow
when I am working with the process. The process is what transforms
it. Sometimes that's in the mold making but most of the time
it's not. Usually, at least with "Lick and Lather",
it's afterwards.
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