Pietà by Angus Fairhurst

~ JezzieG
Pietà by Angus Fairhurst

Pietà
1996
Modern Photography
Colour photograph on paper
Collection of the Tate, United Kingdom

“Pietà” is a photograph of Fairhurst lying limp and naked in the arms of a stuffed gorilla in a pose that mimics that of the dead Christ in his mother’s arms, the classic Pieta form seen in much of Christianity’s religious art of the Renaissance. In his right hand, Fairhurst grasps the camera’s cable release. With closed eyes and the protective cradling and downcast face of the gorilla connotations of death are unavoidable.

Angus Fairhurst 1966-2008

Angus Fairhurst
Young British Artists, Installation Art, Performance Art, Conceptual Art
Born: 4 October 1966, Kent, UK
Nationality: British
Died: 29 March 2008, Argyll and Bute, Scotland

Fairhurst was an artist working in installation, photography, and video. The ‘quiet man’ of the Young British Artists, his sophisticated and understated practice reveals an artist interested in poignant meditations on life, individual experiences, and society. His work has been overshadowed by his suicide, but his creations investigated questions of self-awareness, his own life, and vanity using visual cues including animals and magazine images

Published by JezzieG

I am a freelance writer and poet and started writing after raising my two boys as a way of discovering just who Jez is. That is still very much an ongoing project but the journey so far has introduced me to many wonderful friends and fellow writers through an ever-growing love of poetry.