Yea High (sweetpreparator)

2015 - Sculpture (Sculpture)
67 x 47 x 9 cm

Employing both the High Modernist technique of abstraction and monochronism, as in the work of Lucio Fontana and Yves Klein, and bodily states of fetishization, Yea High (sweetpreparator) reworks the art historical canon of movement and the body to consider flesh as a physical construction of man-made matter. In the work, the artist uses perspiration as a medium on the surface, combing the man-made and the organic. The pink of the surface reflects the artist’s interest in reframing the way we understand the permeability of human skin. The creases of the plaster and the adipose surface enhanced provoke the skins surface susceptibility of scratches, ruptures, injured tissue and abrasions. The artist’s interest in the construction of the prosthesis, the aesthetic of the abject and bodily subversion is central to Yea High (sweetpreparator) deconstruction of the expectation of the image of a body, its performance and movement. By abstracting the figure of the body as a monochrome surface of constructed flesh, Nashat critiques the notion of perfection and expectations of the body, heralding autonomy and independence over purity.

The work of Shahryar Nashat (b. 1975, Geneva, Switzerland) is made up of the interwoven fragments of baroque and renaissance sculptures, humour, sensuality and insolence. Practicing largely in installation format, which give prominence to video, include photography, sculpture and etchings, the artist creates new opportunities for critical reflection about the canon of artistic media. With an interest in art collections, libraries, artwork reproductions and archives, Nashat imagines new forms of display through artistic reuse. Combining synthetic forms mediated by organic and man-made representations, the artist’s oeuvre is an examination of the human-body’s interaction with material culture.

Colors: