Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing

Floor 6

Born 1985 in Hamburg, Germany
Lives in Chicago, IL

Nourisher, which consists of a chest and partial face cast gazing down, reflects on the experience of nursing and the sharing of resources between the nourisher and the infant. Bodily connection takes the form of surgical tubes, creating a clinical and ambivalent picture of motherhood. Along with her Conception Drawings, Nourisher was produced at a time when Julia Phillips was exploring pregnancy and motherhood as a subject of visual representation, and trying to articulate the undefined border between mother and embryo/fetus/infant.

Two ceramic chest casts, glazed in contrasting complexions, conjure an image of slightly tilted standing human bodies—both familiar and alien. “By showing the body in fragments I am hinting at a potential presence,” the artist has said. “Letting viewers fill in the blanks hopefully allows them to adjust the work to fit their own realities and imaginations.” A microphone sits on top of the vertical support, suggesting absorption and amplification, and the mediation between two parties.