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Huysman's Cornucopia Polymer Cement, Epoxy and Swarovski Rhinestones 950 x 450 x 400 mm Edition of 10 'Huysman's Cornucopia' is a contemporary acknowledgment of Joris-Karl Huysmans' decidedly anti-Naturalistic book 'Against Nature'. Oscar Wilde, in the words of Dorian Gray, describes it as 'the strangest book he had ever read...There were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids, and as subtle in colour.' And just as Des Esseintes, the book's protagonist, claims 'The age of nature is past; it has finally exhausted the patience of all sensitive minds by the loathsome monotony of its landscapes and skies,' so the protagonist of this sculpture straddles a bounty of artifice. The cabriole chest spills forth an abundance of decoration and faux-harvest as alluring and whimsical as Des Esseintes' decision to display his favourite jewels by setting them into the shell of his pet tortoise. With the spirit of this dense and dark fiction, this sculpture celebrates and parallels themes of fertility and eroticism in a playful game of the boudoir. |