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Lot Essay
"The Origin of Species" (1993) is a self-portrait of Marc Quinn composed of coconut milk. Poured into a cast made from the artist's features, the milk was then frozen solid and, to keep its form, has to be kept in a refrigeration unit. The coconut milk head rests at eye level to allow maximum contact between the viewer and the artist's visage, and although the head is covered with a thin film of ice, its features can be seen. The eyes are closed as though in deep contemplation and the work conveys a peaceful and restful expression.
Quinn's primary concern in this, and much of his other work is with the expression of the nature of incarnation and with the existential condition of mankind. As Mark Gisbourne has written about Quinn's work, "a creative concern with incarnation both of self and self as 'other', is the investigative question that this artist pursues... It is the frame within which all Quinn's works can be encompassed, since it engages with the most fundamental of conditions in the generation and regeneration of human life. Likewise an engagement with his body is a commitment to shell off our verifiable and actual physical containment. While his work may be read as a simple engagement with issues of personal identity, it is in fact an 'exemplum' of universal identity; as a 'man-made flesh'. Incarnation (from the Latin 'caro', meaning 'flesh' represents the fusion of two natures of the human and the divine, or put in more modern terms, the sacred and the profane, the material and the immaterial nature(s) of man." (M. Gisbourne, "Marc Quinn Incarnate", London 1998, unpaged).
In "The Origin of Species", Quinn substitutes coconut milk where he had used blood plasma in his celebrated "Self" of 1991 - the first of his refrigerated heads. By using these two different natural liquids within the same context, Quinn emphasises the inter-changeability of materials and draws attention to the transmutation potential within them, since coconut milk has sometimes been used in desperate medical circumstances as a substitute for blood plasma. By using coconut milk in this self-portrait in the place of blood and in referring to Darwin's theory of evolution in the title of the work, Quinn is pointing to the continual and on-going evolutionary mutational processes that are at work within us and within nature. As Gisbourne has written: "The idea of paradoxical forces and/or vital fluids and the changing transposition of life and its origins from one thing to another, be they physiological, sanguineous, or botanical is what brings together such works as 'Self', 'The Origin of Species' and 'Rubber Soul'. (op. cit.)
Quinn's primary concern in this, and much of his other work is with the expression of the nature of incarnation and with the existential condition of mankind. As Mark Gisbourne has written about Quinn's work, "a creative concern with incarnation both of self and self as 'other', is the investigative question that this artist pursues... It is the frame within which all Quinn's works can be encompassed, since it engages with the most fundamental of conditions in the generation and regeneration of human life. Likewise an engagement with his body is a commitment to shell off our verifiable and actual physical containment. While his work may be read as a simple engagement with issues of personal identity, it is in fact an 'exemplum' of universal identity; as a 'man-made flesh'. Incarnation (from the Latin 'caro', meaning 'flesh' represents the fusion of two natures of the human and the divine, or put in more modern terms, the sacred and the profane, the material and the immaterial nature(s) of man." (M. Gisbourne, "Marc Quinn Incarnate", London 1998, unpaged).
In "The Origin of Species", Quinn substitutes coconut milk where he had used blood plasma in his celebrated "Self" of 1991 - the first of his refrigerated heads. By using these two different natural liquids within the same context, Quinn emphasises the inter-changeability of materials and draws attention to the transmutation potential within them, since coconut milk has sometimes been used in desperate medical circumstances as a substitute for blood plasma. By using coconut milk in this self-portrait in the place of blood and in referring to Darwin's theory of evolution in the title of the work, Quinn is pointing to the continual and on-going evolutionary mutational processes that are at work within us and within nature. As Gisbourne has written: "The idea of paradoxical forces and/or vital fluids and the changing transposition of life and its origins from one thing to another, be they physiological, sanguineous, or botanical is what brings together such works as 'Self', 'The Origin of Species' and 'Rubber Soul'. (op. cit.)