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Unmarked
Urn #1
48”x65”
C-print
2006 |
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Artist Statement
What happens to our bodies when we
die? And, too, what happens to our
souls?
The copper canisters depicted in The
Library of Dust each contain the cremated
remains of a patient from a state
psychiatric hospital whose body remained
unclaimed by their family.
The canisters have a handmade quality;
they are at turns burnished or dull;
corrosion blooms wildly from the leaden
seams of many of the cans. Numbers
are stamped into each lid; the lowest
number is 01, and the highest is 5,118.
The intensely hued colors of the blooming
minerals, the etching of the surface
of the copper, the denting of the
metal, and in some cases, the vestiges
of paper labels with the names of
the dead, all combine to individuate
the canisters, to imbue each with
a remarkable singularity. Their strange,
sublime surfaces evoke the celestial-
the Northern Lights, the moons of
some alien planet, or constellations
in the night sky.
Surely there are physical and chemical
reasons for the ways these canisters
have transformed over time, but perhaps
there are other interpretations as
well. Matter lives on even when the
body vanishes, even when it has been
destroyed by an institutionalized
methodology of incinerating the body
to ash. Does some form of spirit live
on as well? Can it be the soul that
is describing itself to us on the
copper surface of the body’s
container?
Contact
david@davidmaisel.com
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