Marc Quinn facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Marc Quinn
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Quinn in 2017
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| Born | 8 January 1964 London, UK
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| Education | Robinson College, Cambridge |
| Known for | Contemporary art, Young British artists |
| Awards | 2004 – 4th Plinth Commission for Trafalgar Square, London |
Marc Quinn (born January 8, 1964) is a famous British artist. He creates sculptures, installations, and paintings. His art makes people think about what it means to be human today. He explores ideas like the human body, our genes, who we are, and the world around us.
Quinn uses many different materials in his art. These include blood, bread, flowers, marble, and steel. His work has been shown in major art galleries. These include the Tate Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, and Fondazione Prada. He was also a well-known member of a group called the Young British Artists.
Marc Quinn is famous around the world. In 2004, he was chosen to create the first sculpture for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London. For this, he made a statue called Alison Lapper Pregnant. His well-known series of self-portraits, Self, is made from his own frozen blood. These works were shown in a special exhibition in 2009.
Quinn lives and works in London.
Contents
Marc Quinn's Life and Art Career
Marc Quinn was born in London on January 8, 1964. His mother was French, and his father was British. He spent his early childhood in Paris. His father was a scientist who worked with special instruments. Quinn remembers being fascinated by these tools, especially atomic clocks. He went to a private school called Millfield. Later, he studied history and art history at Robinson College, Cambridge.
In the early 1990s, Quinn became one of the first artists to work with art dealer Jay Jopling. His first exhibition with Jopling was in 1991. He showed Self (1991), a self-portrait made from nine pints of his own frozen blood.
During the 1990s, Quinn and other artists became known for their new ways of making art. In 1992, this group was called the 'Young British Artists'. Other artists in this group included Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.
In 1995, Quinn had a solo exhibition at Tate Britain. In 1997, his work Self (1991) was shown at the Sensation exhibition in London. This exhibition got a lot of attention and had many visitors. It later traveled to Berlin and New York.
Quinn had many other solo exhibitions. These included shows at the South London Gallery (1998) and the Groninger Museum (2000). In 2000, he showed a large new work called Garden at the Fondazione Prada in Milan. In 2001, the National Portrait Gallery showed his special portrait of John Sulston.
In 2004, Quinn was chosen for the first-ever commission for the Fourth Plinth in London's Trafalgar Square. He created a marble sculpture of the pregnant artist Alison Lapper.
In 2012, Quinn created a huge sculpture for the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games at the London Olympics. This work, called Breath, was a giant sculpture of Alison Lapper held up by air.
In 2017, Marc Quinn had a big exhibition at the Sir John Soane's Museum in London. This show brought his modern art into a historic museum.
Marc Quinn's Artworks
Quinn's early art looked at ideas about the body, how things change over time, and how we preserve things. He used unusual materials like bread, blood, flowers, and even DNA. Some of these early works include Bread Sculptures (1988) and Emotional Detox (1995). In the 2000s, he started using materials like marble, bronze, and concrete. He explored the human body and its limits using these classic materials. Later, he began working with stainless steel, aluminum, and even graffiti paints.
Self (1991 – present)
One of Quinn's most famous works is Self. He first showed it in 1991 when he was 27. Self (1991) is a self-portrait made from a frozen mold of 10 pints of his own blood. It is an ongoing project. Every five years, he makes a new cast using his current blood.
These artworks are kept in clear boxes on top of freezing cabinets. This shows how the art depends on being kept cold. The Self (2006) sculpture is owned by the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Emotional Detox (1995)
In 1995, Quinn created Emotional Detox. This series has seven sculptures made of lead. They are casts of the artist's own body. These works were inspired by the idea of the the seven deadly sins. In each sculpture, Quinn's body seems to be pulled apart and put back together. This shows the idea of "detoxification" as a struggle for both the body and mind.
Emotional Detox has been shown in major museums. These include Tate Britain in London and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
Garden (2000)
In 2000, Quinn had a solo exhibition at the Fondazione Prada in Milan. This show included some of his most ambitious works using natural materials. Garden is a huge sculpture, 12 meters long and 3 meters high. It contains thousands of flowers frozen in silicone oil. This artwork is now part of the Fondazione Prada collection.
Important Artworks: 2000–2010
Portrait of John E. Sulston (2001)
Quinn's portrait of John E. Sulston is at the National Portrait Gallery. John Sulston won the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine in 2002. He helped map the human genome. Quinn's portrait is made of bacteria that contain Sulston's DNA. These bacteria are in a jelly-like substance called agar. Sulston explained that his DNA was broken into pieces and put into bacteria. These bacteria were then spread on the agar jelly to create the portrait.
Alison Lapper, The Fourth Plinth (2005–2007)
Quinn has created many marble sculptures of people who were born without limbs or had them amputated. One of his most famous is a 15-ton marble statue of Alison Lapper. She is also an artist. This statue was shown on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London, from 2005 to 2007. The Fourth Plinth is a special spot where different sculptures are displayed for a limited time.
A large copy of this sculpture was a main part of the 2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony.
Sphinx (2006) and Siren (2008)
Since 2006, Marc Quinn has made many sculptures of the supermodel Kate Moss. In April 2006, Sphinx was shown. It's a sculpture of Kate Moss in a yoga pose. This work was part of an exhibition in New York in 2007. The Sphinx sculpture is now on permanent display in Folketeatret in Oslo, Norway.
In August 2008, Quinn showed another sculpture of Kate Moss. It was made of solid 18-carat gold and called Siren. This life-size sculpture was shown at the British Museum in London. It was promoted as "the largest gold statue since ancient Egypt".
History Paintings (2009 – present)
In 2009, Quinn started his "History Paintings" series. This series is still growing. The first works in this group were large pictures from news photos of conflicts around the world. He turned them into oil on canvas paintings or jacquard tapestries made of silk or wool.
Important Artworks: 2010 – present
Quinn has used unique models for his sculptures. These include "Catman" Dennis Avner, who had tattoos to look like a cat. He has also sculpted transgender people like Thomas Beatie, Buck Angel, and Allanah Starr. The sculpture of Thomas Beatie shows him when he was pregnant. He is bowing his head and holding his stomach with both hands.
An exhibition also included new flower paintings with reversed colors. There were also two large orchid sculptures made of white painted bronze. These were placed in Hoxton Square.
The Toxic Sublime (2015)
In 2015, Marc Quinn opened an exhibition called The Toxic Sublime. It showed new works that explore how humans affect nature. The ‘Toxic Sublimes’ are twisted, three-dimensional seascapes. Along with these paintings, a new series of sculptures called Frozen Waves was shown. These are made of stainless steel, with one being over 7.5 meters long. The sculptures are shaped like the inside of shells, worn away by endless waves.
All About Love (2016–2017)
In 2017, Quinn had a solo exhibition at Sir John Soane's Museum in London. This show featured 12 sculptures from his All About Love series. These works explore the idea of love through fragmented classical sculptures. They were made with his partner at the time. The sculptures show the two of them embracing. They remind us of sculptures from different art periods, like the Renaissance and works by Auguste Rodin.
A Surge of Power (Jen Reid) (2020)
The sculpture A Surge of Power (Jen Reid) 2020 was secretly put up in Bristol early on July 15, 2020. It is Quinn's statue of Black Lives Matter protester, Jen Reid. The statue was placed on the empty stand where a statue of Edward Colston used to be. Colston was a 19th-century merchant involved in the Atlantic slave trade. Just over 24 hours after it was put up, the Bristol City Council took the statue down. This was because it did not have permission to be there. The Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, asked Quinn to help pay for the cost of removing his statue.
Viral Paintings (2020)
This ongoing series of paintings by Quinn started in 2020. They are made by splashing paint over large screenshots of photos and news stories from his cell phone. He created them during and because of the COVID-19 pandemic. These new works are seen as a continuation of his History Painting series, which began in 2009.
Public Collections
Marc Quinn's art can be found in many public collections around the world. Some of these include:
- Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris
- Museum of Modern Art, New York
- National Portrait Gallery, London
- Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
- Tate Modern, London
Images for kids
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Quinn in 2017
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Planet by Marc Quinn in Singapore
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'Eternal Spring – Sunflowers II', sunflowers kept chilled in liquid silicone oil
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An orchid sculpture by Marc Quinn on the Seilersee in Iserlohn
Error: no page names specified (help). In Spanish: Marc Quinn para niños
