Hermaphrodities
Richard Hawkins, Hermaphrodities
Richard Hawkins, Hermaphrodities
My interests stem from research into classical sculpture of gender ambiguity, the two obvious examples being the Roman copies of the Greek Sleeping Hermaphrodite at the Borghese, Rome and the Louvre, Paris.
Throughout, at least, the Victorian and modern eras, sculpture with more erotic content has been displayed discretely – if at all – and the Borghese installation is characteristic of this; the Hermaphrodite’s more feminine qualities are emphasized by pointing the rest of her at the wall. The Louvre sculpture, however, is displayed in such a way that one is directed toward viewing the figure’s back first and then invited to view the front afterwards, essentially making her perhaps the only classical work whose back is its front and its front its back. I find this to have an intriguing, almost allegorical relationship to both gender ambiguity and 3-imensionality.
The works completed during my stay in Albisola use the above-escribed dynamic in a series of small sculptures which, hopefully, have a complicated, anomalous relationship between an indicated front and a corresponding but conflictual back.
Richard Hawkins
Hermaphrodities by Richard Hawkins was made in Albisola (Italy) in 2006 on occasion of the 3rd Biennial of Ceramics in Contemporary Art.
Tiziana Casapietra and Richard Hawkins,
Undisciplined and uncompromising sculptures
