Janine
Antoni was born and raised in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island,
Bahamas. She attended Sarah Lawrence College, in New York,
and received a mater’s degree in sculpture from Rhode Island
School of Design. She lives and works in New York City.
Janine
Antoni studied dance for eleven years and has been interested
in combining physical aspects of dance with the creation
of a work of art. "With Gnaw I was thinking
about traditional sculpture, about carving. I was also interested
in figurative sculpture. I put those two ideas together
and decided that rather than describing the body, I would
use the body, my body, as a tool for making art."1
She also wanted to explore society's obsession with beauty
and physical appearance and how it can be reflected by what
we eat.
Many
steps were involved in the creation of Gnaw. This
work began with Antoni making two 600-pound cubes, one of
chocolate and the other of lard. She then chewed some of
the chocolate and lard off each cube. Out of the chewed
chocolate she manufactured replicas of heart-shaped candy
boxes. Pigment was added to the chewed lard to make fake
lipsticks. When the entire work is exhibited it includes
a mirrored room where the candy boxes and lipsticks are
displayed and the two gnawed cubes are arranged in front
of this room.
- In
your opinion, would it be different if Antoni used a tool
to make it appear as if the chocolate and lard cubes had
been chewed on instead of actually biting the cubes herself?
Why or why not?
Antoni
used two different processes to make Gnaw. First
she used her body as a tool to chew or gnaw. Second she
had the lipsticks manufactured from lard and the heart-shaped
candy boxes manufactured from chocolate.
- Compare
these two processes. How are they similar and how are
they different?
- What
do you think about her decision to display the lipsticks
and chocolate in a mirrored room? What do mirrors make
you think of?
She displayed
the two cubes of lard and chocolate (approximately 2 x 2 x
2 feet) that were used to make the candy boxes and lipstick,
in front of the display case that held those objects.
- Why
do you think she left the unfinished blocks of lard and
chocolate as part of the installation?
- Kay
Larson , "Women's Work (or Is It Art?) Is Never
Done," The New York Times, Sunday, January
7, 1996, sec. 2, p. 35.
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