Katy Schimert

2010 Next Wave Art, BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music)

Introduction

Curated by Dan Cameron. Installed in the lobby of the Peter Jay Sharp Building.

Originally shown in the 2001 exhibition Body Parts. I began making images about war and the mutilated body initially inspired by ghastly accounts of the Rwandan genocide and photographs of vandalized sculptures after the fall of the Soviet Union. These accounts and images recalled the graphic photographs in Life magazine of the Vietnam War. I was equally influenced by the painting The Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Gericault.

This exhibition included a pile of seventy cast ceramic body parts and internal organs. The surface is a dark metallic glaze with a watery effect.

Installation Views


Untitled (Body Parts), 2001, terra-cotta with black onyx luster, 29 x 109 x 79 inches (73.7 x 276.9 x 200.7 cm). Installation view: lobby of the Peter Jay Sharp Building Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)