Polly Morgan : Psychopomps.
Material type:
TextPublication details: London : Haunch of Venison, 2011.Description: 104 p. : ill. ; 23 x 17 cmISBN: - 1905620527 (cloth)
- 9781905620524 (cloth)
- Psychopomps
- 704.9432 MOR
| Item type | Current library | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Loan | LSAD Library Main Collection | 704.9432 MOR (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Missing | 39002100465351 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Psychopomps is Polly Morgan's first solo exhibition with Haunch of Venison. It consists of four suspended taxidermy sculptures, each poised between metamorphosis and flight. Named Psychopomps after the mythical creatures that conduct souls into the after-life, their historical representation includes Hermes and Charon from Greek mythology, the Valkyries from Norse myth, Anubis the jackal-headed Egyptian God, and in various cultures, horses, bees, birds and shamans. Known for presenting animals outside their natural habitats - rats in champagne glasses, chicks harnessed by balloons or bursting from the seams of coffins or the earpieces of a telephone receiver - in Psychopomps Morgan has taken this subversion a stage further. For the first time the human body has been implicated in this macabre play and in the winged works the animals' bodies are no longer recognizable from life. These reassembled creatures are a distortion of nature, as if dredged from a dream. The abundance of wings and its nightmarish connotations add a surreal psychological dimension to these elevated spectres, which fan their plume but remain disembodied and faceless.
This book explores Polly Morgan\'s work in taxidermy and how she uses it to place the animals in less expected scenery, rather than to mimic their natural habitats - to encourage us to look at them for the first time.