Lick and Lather

1993

Janine Antoni

Artist, Bahamian, born 1964

Creating two lines that move away from us, a row of seven busts of a woman’s head and neck made from brown chocolate face a row seven busts showing the same woman made from white soap, each on an identical white, columnar pedestal. In this photograph, they are placed in a long room with cream-white walls, tan stone molding, and a dark gray marble floor leading to an open doorway at the far end of the room, across from us. Each bust shows a woman with a small button nose, pursed lips, and closed eyes. Her hair is pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. Each bust ends just below the shoulder line and is held on a base that flares out like a chess piece to act as a foot. Each sits on a columnar pedestal that comes about a third of the way up the height of the tall doorway. Though the faces look similar or identical at first glance, closer inspection shows that some are worn at different areas, like the chin, forehead, nose, cheeks, or bun. One of the soap busts, at the far end, is missing the entire crown of the head and the profiles of two more soap busts and one chocolate bust are worn down so much it appears the face is missing. The surface of some of the chocolate busts looks almost frosted where the light hits it. The ivory color of the soap busts are more consistent.
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Lick and Lather comprises fourteen self-portrait busts that Janine Antoni cast in two materials, with seven in chocolate, and seven in soap. Each cast was identical until the artist undertook the task of licking the chocolate busts and bathing with the soap busts, hence the playful title, Lick and Lather. Antoni's labor in making the work resulted in two sets of fourteen: seven autonomous soap-chocolate pairs and the Gallery's fourteen busts. The number seven is significant for it represents the average number of heads measuring a full female figure, a metric used in drawing classes. In this sculpture, the artist's self-effacing erasure differentiates her self-portrait from her self, thus Lick and Lather reflects on the inherent nature of cast sculpture as a reproductive medium. It also riffs on the idealizing representations in classical sculpture, which over time have become worn. Materially, the chocolate has a textured patination, akin to bronze, while the soap busts are smooth, resembling a cross between marble and wax. As the only extant full grouping, the Gallery's set of Lick and Lather is the fullest iteration of Antoni's concept.

Janine Antoni was born in the Bahamas in 1964, attended boarding school in Florida, graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, and received her M.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design. She has lived and worked in Brooklyn for more than thirty years, accumulating awards and honors, including a "genius" grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 1998. She is also on the visual arts faculty at Columbia University.

Antoni's performative work regularly transforms the processes of daily rituals (eating, washing, sleeping, and walking) into art. To create her work, Antoni has consistently employed her body as a tool, upending more traditional modes of art making. She insists that the process becomes the end and the material the means for her work. By pushing herself to the limits of exhaustion in interacting with all the busts, Antoni references the test of ones' body to process socially coded consumption: desire, symbolized by chocolate on the one hand, and beauty, symbolized by soap, on the other. Antoni has said, "All of my objects sort of walk the line between sculpture, performance, and relic. Any time I use performance, it's not so much my interest in performance but my interest in bringing you back to the making."

In 1993, the year Antoni made Lick and Lather, the artist received considerable attention. That year, she also made Loving Care, by loading her hair with dye, the titular product, Loving Care "Natural Black" used by her mother, and proceeding to paint or mop the floor of the Anthony d'Offay Gallery in London. Eventually, she covered the entire surface, and backed the viewer out of the space. Trained in dance, Antoni's performance was deliberate and rhythmic, pushing herself once again to physical limits.

The Gallery's set of Lick and Lather was first presented at the 1993 Venice Biennale, where it was displayed in a church, followed by a show in New York at the Sandra Gering Gallery. It has been included in important exhibitions ever since. Lick and Lather is Antoni's most revered work, one that marks a specific moment in art history, focusing on the philosophical matters of identity that continue into the present. Altogether, it compels the viewer to consider Antoni's process while also engaging with a long arc of art making.


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    complete set of fourteen busts: seven in chocolate and seven in soap on fourteen pedestals

  • Credit Line

    Gift of the Collectors Committee

  • Dimensions

    overall (each of 14 busts): 60.96 × 40.64 × 33.02 cm (24 × 16 × 13 in.)

  • Accession

    2016.49.1

More About this Artwork

Article:  Delicious, Daring, and Deadly Materials in Art

Trick or treat? Discover artists' materials that range from spooky to delicious.


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Jeffrey Deitch, New York; purchased 2016 through (Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York) by NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1993

  • Aperto 93: Emergency / Emergenza: Flash Art International, 45th Venice Biennale, Arsenale, Venice, 1993, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1994

  • Face-Off: The Portrait in Recent Art, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, 1994-1995, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1995

  • Slip of the Tongue - Works from 1989-1995, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 1995.

1996

  • Art at the Edge: Janine Antoni, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 1996.

1999

  • Regarding Beauty: A View of the Late 20th Century, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington; Haus der Kunst, Munich, 1999-2000, no. 1, repro.

2004

  • Bodily Space: New Obsessions in Figurative Sculpture, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, 2004, no. 1.

2013

  • NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, New Museum, New York, 2013, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

2021

  • Sturman, Shelley, and Molly Donovan. "The Artist as Primary Source of the Conservation of Contemporary Sculpture." Facture: conservation, science, art history 5 (2021): 174-202, fig. 20, figs. 21(a), 21(b), 22(a), 22(b) (details).

Wikidata ID

Q63864055


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