Year: 2021
Medium: Bronze, stainless steel, wooden pedestal
Dimensions: 162.5 x 51 x 61 cm (64 x 20 x 24 in.)
Acquired from PERROTIN, 2022
This work is from Arsham’s “Fictional Archaeology” series. Known for his desolate dystopian style, Arsham used plaster to create installations that imitate white collapsing ruins and relics, and even sculptures that look like “bleached” Pokémons. Intentionally skipping the “present” on time axis, his works suggest a transcending perspective of looking back to the “past” from the “future “. The title “Venus Italica” of this work was a classical variant of Venus statue that Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned Antonio Canova to create in the 19th century, who was one of the most prominent neoclassical sculptors of the time. Plaster replicas of the head are extensively produced and are generally inexpensive. Materials used in this sculpture – metal (bronze and stainless steel), is rarely found in Arsham’s works. The reason for this is that because “plaster” was used on the original statue to nullify the texture and color of the reference, it was necessary for Arsham to create with a material that is entirely different from such medium. This is certainly a promising work that marks the beginning of a new chapter derived from “Fictional Archaeology”.
