Janine Antoni
I conjure up
2019
Mixed media gilded with 24 karat gold leaf
14 1/8 x 16 1/4 x 1 1/8 inches
Commissioned by The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY.
© Janine Antoni; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco
Photo: Christopher Burke
Janine Antoni’s intimate and ornate mixed media relief “I conjure up,” (2019) was first installed inside a chamber in the catacombs of The Green-Wood Cemetery as part of “I am fertile ground,” a larger installation of objects and performances. In each of Antoni’s pieces, a conveyed physicality speaks directly to the viewer’s body. “I conjure up” is derived from the artist swimming with her mother and painting her mother’s palms gold. A text accompanying the piece states, “Rubbing them together, her mother became transfixed by the gold rising to the water's surface. Seeing the stirring of water, body and clouds, Antoni captured the chaos. Responding to the troubled waters, she drags the bones of the hands, memorializing the whirl of elements into the solidity of bone and clay.”
Janine Antoni is a visual artist who was born in Freeport, Bahamas in 1964. She received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She is known for her unusual processes. Her body is both her tool for making and the source from which her meaning arises. Antoni’s early work transformed materials like chocolate and soap and used everyday activities like bathing, eating, and sleeping as sculptural processes. She carefully articulates her relationship to the world, giving rise to emotional states that are felt in and through the senses. In each piece, no matter the medium or image, a conveyed physicality speaks directly to the viewer’s body.
Antoni has been featured in numerous international biennials including documenta14, the Venice Biennale, the Whitney Biennial, the Johannesburg Biennial, the Istanbul Biennial, the Kwangju Biennial, the Prospect.1 Biennial in New Orleans and the SITE Santa Fe Biennial. Antoni is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship (1998), John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Award (2011), Creative Capital Grant (2012), and Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2014). Her most recent major exhibition, "I am fertile ground," was presented at The Green-Wood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, NY in 2019. Antoni currently resides in New York and is represented by Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York, and Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco.
Learn more at
www.janineantoni.net
