Marc Quinn

Marc Quinn was born in London in 1964, where he continues to live and work. In 1981, he became an assistant to sculptor Barry Flanagan, learning bronze-working techniques and other materials essential for sculpture creation. Quinn enrolled at Cambridge University in 1982, graduating with a degree in History of Art. Inspired by artists such as Rodin, Canova, Degas, Giacometti, and Flemish painting, he began to envision his path as a contemporary re-reading of art history.

In 1988, Quinn met his first gallerist, Jay Jopling, in London, leading to his first solo exhibition with the work Faust. In 1991, he created a sculpture that would become symbolic of a new generation of contemporary artists. For five months, he drew five liters of his own blood to produce Self, a life-cast of his head made from frozen blood, encased in a refrigerated perspex shell. Quinn stated, “I wanted to make a work that dealt with life and its fragility; I wanted form and content to be me.” From this moment on, critics, curators, and museum directors recognized Marc Quinn as one of the most significant contemporary sculptors, adept at blending tradition with modernity.

In the Iannaccone Collection, two notable sculptures by Quinn are present: Kiss (2001) and Sphinx – Victory (2006). Kiss, made from approximately 600 kg of Carrara marble, challenges the clichés of representation. Quinn reflects, “There’s nothing more cliché than a kiss and nothing more banal than a marble sculpture. Bringing these two together is a real challenge. A cliché is a powerful theme, like mother and child or a kiss. It’s like a beautiful building left abandoned; if restored, it can create something fantastic. Every generation must reinvent the cliché because there are only so many themes in the world, so they must be recreated in one's own world.”

Sphinx – Victory (2006) is a painted bronze sculpture depicting the face of the renowned model Kate Moss combined with the body of a contortionist. Quinn elaborates, “I began to explore the current idea of beauty, and then I chose Kate as the Aphrodite of our time. Kate is a very contemporary and archetypal image, echoing classical themes. It’s a ‘Birth of Venus,’ but a Venus that seems to give birth to herself, a woman entwined and bound. It’s a sculpture on two levels: in a purely physical sense, but also as a representation of someone whose image is sculpted by collective desire. It’s therefore like a sculpture, but incorporeal.”