Remember the Nine Inch Nails - Pinion music video? It's what Nancy Grossman's drawings and wooden sculptures in bondage gears remind me of. Yet, what's surprising is that she refers to them as self-portraits whose layers can symbolize another "protective skin". Indeed, it may show artists' involvement in their art, how they offer us a part of them in a way and also deepen Grossman's idea that "nature gives us a face" and "we make ourselves another".
Here what she stated concerning her project "Cob": "I noticed how fragile people are. I saw how the human-animal has to limit himself to live in our society—how he has to tie up any feelings he has that might upset the applecart”. - Time, June 13, 1969.
Nancy Grossman's art can be qualified as disturbing, raw, and even aggressive but there are layers to it, it raises the issue concerning our place as individuals in modern society and challenges us to question ourselves.
Tang Museum exhibition, via Timeunion.com
HEAD, 1969.
LEATHER HEAD, 1968.
BLACK, 1973-1974 via artnet.fr
TONKU, 1980 via noma.org
COB II, 1977-1980 via metmuseaum.org
Pic by Gail via worleygig.com
UNTITLED, 1971.
UNTITLED DRAWING,1970.
TWO HEADS - BACK AND FRONT, 1968 via pafa.org
GUNHEAD #2
ROAD TO LIFE, 1975
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