Showing at the Wellcome Collection until Wednesday, Anatomy of Desire showcases artist Charlie Murphy's glass kiss casts...
Who? Artist Charlie Murphy, whose work is often an exploration of intimacy reliant on public participation.
What? Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1999, Murphy's work has included live participatory performances, visual art installations, photography and video works to dentistry, sculpture, cartwheeling and country dancing. One of her key focuses has been her recording unique moments of intimate human contact often through performative "kiss-in events" which she started in 2000. Selected works from this containing project are currently on display at London's Wellcome Collection, including direct impressions of intimate parts of the human body such as the hymen, a series of hand drawn blood vessels and her ongoing series of glass kiss casts (two-way and three-way). It takes Murphy several days to transform each kiss into glass – after a cast has been made of the inside of each couple’s kiss, a complex series of positive and negative moulds are made in wax and plaster before the kiss can be fired in a glass kiln.
"Each couple reveals some intimate dynamic in their relationship through the inadvertent gestures they make in the duration of their kiss"
Why? Murphy's work is an extraordinary survey of the kiss, an action which has preoccupied artists for centuries from Rodin to Klimt, to Munch to Lichenstein. "Each couple reveals some intimate dynamic in their relationship through the inadvertent gestures they make in the duration of their kiss", says Murphy. "I am fascinated by the way people kiss and I want to capture the completely different forms they produce. The finished artwork in glass is not only unique but highly erotic. It is an extraordinarily intimate love token, a kiss which will last forever." The exhibition, which closes next Wednesday, also shows the new directions Murphy’s work is taking and her continuing interest in performance and the processes of making.
Anatomy of Desire and Other Experiments runs until November 30 at the Wellcome Collection.
Text by Laura Bradley
