The exhibition Marc Quinn: History Painting + presents six works by British artist Marc Quinn (b. 1964) displayed among the historical collections of the Yale Center for British Art. The selection, which includes painting and sculpture, is shown alongside works by Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, and J. M. W. Turner, providing a contemporary foil to the museum’s holding of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history paintings, grand manner portraiture, landscape paintings, and portrait busts.
Quinn seeks to make sense of the world by focusing on ideas about science, mortality, survival, and the environment. The exhibition begins in the Entrance Court with Self 1991 (1991), the first in a sculptural series wherein medium, material, and message collide. Made from ten pints of the artist’s frozen blood, the work relies on constant refrigeration to maintain its form. A metaphor for human fragility and physical deterioration, this sculptural self-portrait reverses the traditional role of the portrait bust as a symbol of immortality.
On the fourth floor, four works from Quinn’s History Painting series are displayed alongside the YCBA’s historical collections. Traditional history paintings fictionalized depictions of contemporary events to glorify nation and empire. In Quinn’s History Painting series, the artist inverts the genre by foregrounding civilians engaged in anti-government protests around the world. His photo-realist canvases reimagine iconic images from Associated Press, Getty, and Reuters, such as Vasily Maximov’s photograph of the burning “battlefield” of Kyiv published in Time magazine in 2014, and Jonathan Bachman’s photo of Ieshia Evans facing police in Baton Rouge following the killing of Alton Sterling in 2016. Because of wide-scale media distribution, images of ordinary people take on immense and unprecedented political agency and power.
Over a decade in the making, each painting in the series is carefully developed over a course of months, in contrast to the rapid circulation of the images from which they derive. Each canvas is finished with gestural overpainting, using the same colors with which the picture was made. This final creative step encapsulates the energy of the process and expresses the latent, unlimited potential of paint, in its raw and abstract form, to become any image or depict any event. The combination of hyperrealism and abstraction speaks to the interplay between order and chaos, materialization and dematerialization.
The exhibition also features Thames River Water Atlas (2017), a medium-scale sculpture that Quinn conceived as an artist’s book. Similar to many objects in the museum’s collections, the work considers humanity’s relationship with and impact on the environment. It incorporates traces of detritus found at the edges of the Thames and impressions of water drains in London’s streets, marking a vivid contrast with the land and seascapes on display at the YCBA. This freestanding sculptural work was published by Ivorypress, which has specialized in artists’ books for twenty-five years.
Marc Quinn: History Painting + was organized in collaboration with the artist and curated by Martina Droth, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Yale Center for British Art.
Exhibition Brochure
Read more about the objects on display.
Interview with the Artist
Exhibition curator Martina Droth interviews Marc Quinn.
Exhibition Tours
Saturdays and Sundays at 2 pm, see calendar listings for dates.
Join museum docents for a guided tour of the exhibition.
Related Programs
Opening Conversation | Friday, May 20, noon
Marc Quinn talks with Martina Droth, Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Yale Center for British Art. This program is livestreamed.
Timothy Snyder, “Post-Colonial Ukraine: The Meanings of Resistance” | Friday, June 3, noon
In History Painting (Kiev [Kyiv], 22 January 2014) YGORBW, Quinn depicts the deadly clashes between protesters and police that devastated Kyiv in 2014. As war is waged across Ukraine, the city has once again become a battlefield. Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University, provides historical context for the current conflicts. This program is online.
