paint
scultpure
drawing
animation
Empires tend to come and go. It is only expected they have to be flushed away at some point in time.
Depicted are three prominent members of Florence’s famed de Medici family. Present is Lorenzo the Magnificent, one of the Renaissance’s greatest patron of the arts, his second son Pope Leo X and 200 years further down the family line there is the troubled Grand Duke of Tuscany, Gian Gaston de Medici.
All the characters heads have been fabricated from an assortment of men’s and women’s underwear. I stitched various articles of underwear together primarily using a needle and thread, where it was necessary I used glue. Portraits from the collections of the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace were used as references for the sculptures. They are stuffed with crumpled paper, and in the case of Gian Gastone and Lorenzo they have a mop running through their heads, as a prop for support and it also provides them with a fitting ghostly presence and hair. I chose underwear for the construction as a way of providing some humility, comicalness and embarrassment to the rulers.
2009. 3 Medicis. Installation in Florence, Italy.
