The most provocative – and political – of British painter Jenny Saville’s recent canvases remake traditional Christian pieta imagery in a way that both modernizes it and suggests timelessness. In this striking piece titled ‘Byzantium,’ Mary is replaced by a figure recalling an ancient Greek striding youth – a kouros – while her dead son’s reclining body is transparent, as if real flesh gave way to a Gray’s anatomy diagram. Elsewhere in the show, a male parent cradles a lifeless child with a modern war-ravaged city in the background. As the heads in both images overlap heads and feet reappear many times, Saville seems to suggest that history repeats itself with dire consequences. (On view at Gagosian Gallery’s 21st Street Chelsea location through July 20th).
Jenny Saville, Byzantium, oil on canvas, 76 ½ x 94 1/8 inches, 2018.
Merrily Kerr is an art critic and writer based in New York. For more than 20 years, Merrily has published in international art magazines including Time Out New York, Art on Paper, Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, and Tema Celeste in addition to writing catalogue essays and guest lecturing. Merrily teaches art appreciation at Marymount Manhattan College and has taught for Cooper Union Continuing Education.
For more than a decade Merrily has crafted personalized tours of cultural discovery in New York's galleries and museums for individuals and groups, including corporate tours, collectors, artists, advertising agencies, and student groups from Texas Woman's University, Parsons School of Design, Chicago's Moody Institute, Cooper Union Continuing Education, Hunter College Continuing Education and other institutions. Merrily's tours have been featured in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Sydney Morning Herald and Philadelphia Magazine.
Merrily is licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs as a tour guide and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA USA)
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