Janine Antoni: Milagros | "Exclusive" | Art21

Episode #196: Filmed in 2013, Janine Antoni discusses the sculptures in her solo exhibition "Within" at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Antoni explains how this body of work was inspired by small religious votive charms called milagros ("miracles"), which often take the shape of an ailing area of the body, such as a limb or organ. For her sculptures, Antoni grafted together resin body parts—a hand clasping a coccyx, for instance—to explore the meanings created by two impossible juxtapositions. Antoni is shown at work in her Brooklyn, New York studio.

Janine Antoni's work blurs the distinction between performance art and sculpture. Antoni transforms everyday activities such as eating, bathing, and sleeping into ways of making art, such as painting and sculpting. Themes in her work include mortality, desire, and the body.

Learn more about the artist at:
http://www.art21.org/artists/janine-antoni

"Exclusive" is supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; 21c Museum Hotel, and by individual contributors.

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Ian Forster. Camera: Ben Hernstrom, Rafael Salazar & Ava Wiland. Sound: Ava Wiland. Editor: Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: Janine Antoni & Mattress Factory. Theme Music: Peter Foley.

[Janine Antoni: Milagros]

You know, a lot of people don't know

what the coccyx looks like,

but really, it's the site of our severed tail.

I love the cup of the sacrum and the cup of the hand,

as if they're about to shake hands.

So this is a very unusual--and impossible--

coming together of two body parts.

The whole idea around this work was really about grafting.

When you graft one plant to another,

then they fuse together.

For years, I've been fascinated with

these things called 'milagros'.

They're found in Portugal,

in Spain, in Mexico,

and in Brazil.

The ones that people are most familiar with are

these small medallions that are shaped like

an arm, or a leg,

or a heart.

But they also have them in three dimensions.

The way they're used is that

if you have an ailment--

if you have a problem with your foot--

you would go and buy one of these,

and you'd take it to the church.

They hang them on the ceilings of the church,

so the entire ceiling is filled with body parts.

I was very inspired by these more simple milagros

that are more generalized.

In a way, that foot becomes anyone's foot.

I started with very specific pairings that I was interested in,

and then I took those gestures

and I made milagros out of them.

I mean, all the pieces have been sanded

for days and days and days.

They feel like they've been weathered

by something that seems familiar,

like a piece of sea glass in the ocean.

The fact that you feel that this thing has a history,

I think that's important.

You know, here I am, cutting the body up into parts,

and not thinking about the importance of the sever.

And so to acknowledge that sever was, I think,

crucial to whole installation.

['Within' -- Janine Antoni]

And so, the first thing that you witness

when you come into the space

is a sever--

and a very dramatic sever--

and this ascension into the ceiling.

Initially, I wanted to hang the roots from the ceiling,

and hang the milagros from them.

This trunk is kind of grafted to the building itself,

and then when the trunk goes through the ceiling,

it's grafted to a table on the second floor

with milagros.

When I was a little girl,

I had an aunt--

her name was Auntie Eileen.

She came over every Tuesday to have tea--

she was English.

And, I would sit and have tea with her,

and she would teach me how to drink tea like a lady.

Part of that was learning to cross my legs.

I thought it was funny to take the bone from one leg

and cross it with the skin of the other leg.

I sunk that bone right into the thigh

so that they are really fused together.

So in the piece, there's really no chance

of uncrossing my legs.

When you stand in front of the object,

I want you to imagine how it's been made.

And the reality is that

we are in contact with a lot of objects

and we have no idea how they are made.

Making any of my work is a form of healing--

that, in making, I can somehow locate myself

in relationship to others

and my environment.

If somebody comes along

and my work resonates for them,

that's when I feel less alone--

that I'm not as strange as I feel. [LAUGHS]