2025
Foam taxidermy mount, broken chair
“Why do you tear me from myself?”
Ovid, Metamorphoses, book 6, line 385
A ‘taxidermy form’ or ‘taxidermy mount’ is a pre-made, generic structure used as the basis for taxidermy displays. It is designed to have the skin of an animal stretched over it, in this case a horse. Taxidermy is a combination of fiction and nonfiction, desire-driven but placed in natural history museums rather than sculpture halls. The title of this work refers to a minor figure in Greek mythology who appears in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Installation views, Holding Still, Holding On, The Andy Warhol Museum (March 2025) photo credit: Andy Warhol Museum
Documentation by Chris Uhren