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(British, b. 1964)
Biography
Marc Quinn is one of the UK’s most important living artists and is part of the ‘YBA’ group that emerged in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.
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Predominantly a maker of organic readymades and sculptures of the human body, his best known work is Self (1991), a replica of his own head cast in 4.5 litres of his own frozen blood, which was purchased by Charles Saatchi in 1991. The piece was later exhibited in Saatchi’s Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1997, re-exhibited when the new Saatchi gallery opened in 2003 and then finally sold to an American collector in 2005 for a reported £1.5m.
Quinn’s work shows a preoccupation with the mutability of the body, the definition of human life and the distanced relationship we have with our physical being. Materials used, in addition to blood, have included ice, marble and lead, and the artist develops these paradoxes into conceptual works that are mostly figurative in form. Another important piece in terms of public profile for Quinn was the frozen garden he made for Miuccia Prada in 2000, a walk-through installation of impossibly beautiful flowers that would never decay due to being kept in cryogenic conditions.
In 1999, Quinn began a series of marble sculptures of amputees, referencing the aspirations of Greek and Roman statuary. One such work depicted the artist Alison Lapper, who was born without arms and with shortened legs, when she was heavily pregnant. An enlarged version of this piece later became a major piece of public art when it appeared on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. Quinn speaks about the work: “At first glance it would seem that there are few if any public sculptures of people with disabilities. However, a closer look reveals that Trafalgar Square is one of the few public spaces where one exists: Nelson on top of his column has lost an arm. I think that Alison’s portrait reactivates this dormant aspect of Trafalgar Square. Most public sculpture, especially in the Trafalgar Square and Whitehall areas, is triumphant male statuary. Nelson’s Column is the epitome of a phallic male monument and I felt that the square needed some femininity, linking with Boudicca near the Houses of Parliament. Alison’s statue could represent a new model of female heroism.”
Supported early in his career by Jay Jobling, the founder of White Cube Gallery, London-born Marc Quinn quickly rose among the ranks of the YBA’s in the early nineties with prominent shows at Gagosian, Grob Gallery and art dealer Anthony D’Offay. In the ten years following his solo show at Tate Britain in ’95 - his works has been included at the controversial exhibition ‘Sensation’ at the Royal Academy of Arts in ’97; ‘Garden’ at Fondazione Prada in Milan in ’00; the 50th Venice Biennale in ’03; the sculpture of ‘Alison Lapper Pregnant’ on the 4th plinth on Trafalgar Square in 2005; National Portrait Gallery, London, in 2015; and several others up until today. From his studio in London, Quinn continues to show his universal relevance through museum and solo exhibitions in all corners of the world.