ESSAY: Piccinini’s tender chimeras

By Peter McKay

Sun, 07/01/2018 - 12:00

Having worked diligently for 30 years across multiple media, Patricia Piccinini is widely regarded as one of Australia’s foremost contemporary artists. Today, Piccinini is eminently visible internationally, her work finding regular presentation in large-scale individual and group exhibitions at prominent institutions across Asia, Europe and the United States of America. Most recently, Piccinini has had extraordinary success in South America too, with her touring exhibition hosted by CCBB which travelled across Brasil in 2015 and 2016. This was so well attended that The Art Newspaper proclaimed Piccinini was ‘the top contemporary artist’ in their annual survey of international gallery attendance.¹

For the most part, her imaginative explorations address the potential social implications of new advances in science and technology — particularly in the areas of gene-editing and artificial intelligence. Her reputation is based on her catalogue of finely crafted creatures that are composed from the body parts and subtler gene expressions of multiple species. Known as chimeras — from the Ancient Greek term that originally referred to a fire-breathing beast comprised of both lion and goat, with a serpent for a tail — today the term regularly accounts for all kinds of multi-species fusions now made possible by scientific discovery and technological advancement. In this regard, Piccinini’s creatures are fantastic, yet also very familiar. Audiences recognise certain parts of the anatomy, but also expressions and behaviours. Looking into a pair of thoughtful eyes, or observing a gesture of care, confidence or suffering, it is easy to connect and empathise with the imagined conditions and experiences of Piccinini’s creations — and in this way she encourages her audiences to reflect on the divisions that can result on the basis of difference, and how their behaviours and assumptions may potentially impact the lives of others near and far.

Piccinini’s mysterious yet heartfelt installation The Couple 2018 was first presented by GOMA as the magnificent conclusion to her break-through solo exhibition ‘Curious Affection’ in March 2018. Notably, ‘Curious Affection’ was the first time that an individual Australian artist had been given the entire ground floor of GOMA — and is thought to be the largest presentation of a living Australian artist’s work ever staged. Presenting a pair of hyperreal part-human and part-bear creatures reclined in an embrace, The Couple is also Piccinini’s first depiction of an amorous partnership. To date, Piccinini’s depictions of love have primarily been maternal — valorising the values and experiences of mothers and children. With The Couple, Piccinini consciously and confidently moves into this new territory.

An installation view of two life-like bear-people sharing a bed in the back of a caravan; the sculptures are made from silicone and here we see them up close, tenderly at rest.

Patricia Piccinini’s The Couple (detail) 2018, installed for ‘Fairy Tales’, GOMA, December 2023 / The Taylor Family Collection. Purchased 2018 with funds from Paul, Sue and Kate Taylor through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: QAGOMA / © Patricia Piccinini / Photograph: N Umek, QAGOMA

From her first exhibitions in the early 1990s, Piccinini established a reputation as an artist with a firm grasp on topical social issues, particularly where reproduction and changing notions of what might constitute nature in increasingly technologised eras were concerned. In this vein, Piccinini has long been preoccupied with the scenario of neglect that plays out to horrific consequence in Mary Shelley’s proto science-fiction classic Frankenstein — and her work has often been considered by commentators in this frame of reference. In the original tale, Dr Frankenstein crafts a new life with reclaimed body-parts through scientific processes, only to then abandon his creation. Suffering an intolerable alienation from his maker and wider society, Frankenstein’s progeny begs him for a companion to share his days. Frankenstein initially commits to this request, then reneges, disgusted with his creation — and of course horrible revenge ensues. Two hundred years on from the original publication of Frankenstein, we are only beginning to imagine the extraordinary differences and unexpected scenarios that the rapid advancement of genetic technologies might bring. To this end, The Couple is Piccinini’s most emphatic anti-Frankenstein story.

Like most of Piccinini’s works, many aspects of this story that surrounds The Couple are ambiguous. We, the viewer, do not know how these creatures came to be beyond the presumption of some technological intervention. We do not know if they are the only two creatures of their kind, or if they exist in a world in which they are common. Sheltering in a vintage caravan, we cannot tell if they are leading nomadic lives because they have escaped from the constraints of some sort of facility, or the restraints of enslavement — perhaps, they are simply taking a holiday in the wilderness to escape city life. Regardless, there is a sense of the irrepressible energy and potential of youth in the gesture, and that they might ‘carry the possibility of reproduction, and the possibility for a future outside of our control. Even if their origin is within human control, their destiny is in their own hands.’²

Framing narrative aside, we can recognise the quality of relationship that unites this couple. As different as they may be from us, they are clearly united by a deep trust and affection. They hold each other close, and rest their hands tenderly. He sleeps while she remains awake, perhaps on guard. It is clear that share their lives together, and that they derive meaning and sustenance from this relationship. They are committed companions, and we can appreciate the enhanced emotional value of their experiences together. Just as they demonstrate an empathy for one another, we can also empathise with the significance of such a union to their lives and regard it positively despite their obvious difference from us. It is Piccinini’s hope that we may take this fable — along with her many others — and consciously act in ways that preserve and enhance social bonds that enhance our lives and the lives of others everywhere. Of course, subtly, Piccinini also suggests that there is less difference between the emotional capacity of humans and other species than established narratives often suggest.

Convincing as her future-conscious works are, Patricia Piccinini makes no attempt at prognostication: we should not expect to see her creations — living and breathing — beyond gallery walls anytime soon. Instead, she promotes social ideals through a more holistic perspective on our relationship with culture and nurture, empathy and diversity — spinning valuable new stories to help us make meaning from our existence today, and opening up new possibilities of conscientious responses to growth and change against a backdrop of inevitable discovery and invention into the future.

Endnotes

José Da Silva, Javier Pes and Emily Sharpe, ‘Visitor figures 2016: Christo helps 1.2 million people to walk on water’, The Art Newspaper, 28 March 2017, accessed 25 July 2018.
Patricia Piccinini, interview with the author, Melbourne, 6 December 2017.