Transcript

Flowers, 1986. Different elements are important to artists’ lives; you can look at their vocabulary. And flowers is one that always has stayed very important to me, because it’s a symbol of the now—the fragility of the moment, and of the life, the opportunity that we have in this constant state of being in the now. Flowers was originally a Capodimonte porcelain that I would have molded and put into stainless steel and brought to a highly reflective polish—such that you can feel this sense of social mobility going from a Capodimonte-type figurine into something a little more grander. But for me, when I look at it, I also have an idea of what’s to come. With the Banality series, I make a special project for Artforum, and at the end of the project, I have a Capodimonte vase of flowers—similar to this, a little smaller—but I’m taking a hammer to it, and it’s shattering. And these little fragments are going out in all directions. And on top of it, it’s written, “CRITICALITY GONE.” And it was part of a manifesto for my Banality work to come.