Marc Quinn

Published on the occasion of his major anthology at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, this catalogue gathers a number of works by the renowned British artist. “A journey from the origins of life” that, according to the artist, through very powerful works celebrates “the awe and wonder of the world in which we live.”
Marc Quinn began his career exploring issues such as the relation between art and science, the human body and its survival mechanisms, life and its preservation, beauty and death. Through an essay-interview of the artist with Germano Celant, the volume offers in-depth insight into Quinn’s conceptual practice that incorporates sculpture, painting and installations. The artist’s preoccupation with the metamorphic ability of both human life and nature points to his fascination with our innate spirituality. Quinn questions the codes of nature through his adoption of uncompromising materials such as ice, blood, marble, glass, and lead. Through the use of such materials, his works are at once poetic and confrontational through their exploration of life, death, sexuality, and religion. Quinn transforms the very act of seeing by forcing viewers to question what is around them, pushing them into the unknown in order to rediscover life.
Germano Celant, renowned art historian, critic, and theoretician, has served as the curator of hundreds of exhibitions worldwide and published more than one hundred books and catalogues. Director of the Fondazione Prada, Milan, since 1995, Celant is also the curator of the Fondazione Aldo Rossi in Milan and Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova in Venice. A longtime contributing editor to Artforum and Interview Magazine, Celant writes regular columns for the Italian magazines L'Espresso and Interni.