my heart skipped a beat when i saw this image. this piece is breathtakingly beautiful & sad...and mesmerizing. i can't imagine the emotion if i were standing next to this sculpture. i fell in love with it even more when reading the description below by sabrina gschwandtner.
"Then there was Keith W. Bentley’s “Cauda Equina,” a small, shaggy sculpture of a horse. I stared at the little pony for a while, trying to pinpoint what made his presence so endearing yet inaccessible. I realized that the pony’s eyes were covered by hair, a veil that denied me the connection I sought. Wall text revealed that the work was based on Victorian-era funeral etiquette, which required widows to wear black for eighteen months. The piece mourns the death of over two hundred and fifty horses slaughtered in processing plants; the hairs from each horse were hand-knotted onto fabric and then fitted over a taxidermy form. The fact that this sculptural animal was created as a stand-in for others’ deaths gave it an otherworldly presence."
click link below to see more work in the exhibition
found via etsy: "alive for now" by Sabrina Gschwandtner.
the dead or alive exhibit is at the museum of arts and design in new york, on view until october 24, 3010.