Memorial To A Marriage
Sorry, the video of VelvetPark’s editor Grace Moon interviews queer artist Patricia Cronin at her studio in New York has been deleted by the owner.
In 2002 New York artist Patricia Cronin made a sculpture, which is a ‘Memorial to a Marriage’. She and her partner of 17 years painter Deborah Kass will probably never get to marry as gay marriages are prohibited in USA. The life-size 3 ton Carrara marble mortuary sculpture is a double portrait of her and her partner in their bed. At first the Neo-Classical sculpture resided at the couples burial plot at the famous Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York, but now it touring as an artwork and has replaced by a bronze version at the cemetery. Patricia says in a statement at the Houston Station Museum of Contemporary Art’s website ‘The statue addresses issues of lesbian invisibility, gay marriage, love and loss, and power and status. In death I make official my “marriage” which is still not legal while we are alive.’
About Patricia Cronin
Patricia Cronin (born 1963) is a conceptural artist, who manipulates and reinvigorates traditional historical forms to adress contemporary issues of sexuality, gender and class. Her work focuses on power and powerlessness, absence and presence, and history. She makes paintings, watercolor, sculptures and installations. Her latest exhibtion is ‘Harriet Hosmer, Lost and Found’, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, 2009-10 (catalogue). In 2011 a solo exhibition by Patricia titled ‘All Is Not Lost’ will be coming up at the Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA.
Exhibtion Catalogues by Patricia Cronin
Harriet Hosmer: Lost and Found, A Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Cronin, with preface by Maura Reilly and an essay by William H. Gerdts
Charta Art Books, Milan 2009
ISBN 978-88-8158-732-2
Contemporary artist Patricia Cronin has created a catalogue raisonné of the works of American sculptor Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908). This catalogue combines hand painted images (watercolors) with art historical research to create a document that reveals the complexities of Hosmer’s career, reputation and legacy.
Patricia Cronin: The Domain of Perfect Affection: 1993-2003
Essay by Robert Rosenblum and Sandra Firmin
UB Art Gallery, University at Buffalo, SUNY, 2004
ISBN-10: 097489320X
ISBN-13: 978-0974893204
This exhibition catalogue traces Patricia Cronin’s career from her erotic watercolors to her ode to gay marriage, the marble sculpture ‘Memorial To A Marriage’.
Related Links
See Grace Moon’s article in which the video interview with Patricia Cronin originally was published at the American e-zine ‘Velvetpark – dyke culture in bloom’.