Rachel Kneebone (born 1973, Oxfordshire) is a London-based artist internationally renowned for her porcelain sculptures that intricately fuse human, natural, and abstract forms in ways that are simultaneously serene and cacophonous, beautiful yet grotesque, otherworldly yet full of humanity. Exploring themes such as sexual desire, mortality, anguish, and despair, Kneebone’s sculptures are contemporary visions of eternal truths, conveyed with endless imagination and impressive artistry in equal measure. This publication features works of art and installation documentation from the artist’s acclaimed solo exhibition at Brooklyn Museum in 2012, which included eight of the artist’s works in dialogue with fifteen bronze sculptures by Auguste Rodin that she selected from the museum’s collection. Curated by Catherine Morris, curator at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at Brooklyn Museum, the exhibition was Kneebone’s debut museum show, highlighting the two artists’ shared interest in the representation of mourning, ecstasy, death, and vitality in figurative sculpture as well as offering an illuminating comparison of the artists’ materials and working processes. Featuring a foreword by Catherine Morris and a text by Ali Smith, the publication is lavishly illustrated by photographs of the works by Stephen White and installation photography by Jon Lowe. The centerpiece of the exhibition and a focal point of the publication is a work entitled ‘The Descent’ (2008), which at the time of the Brooklyn Museum show was Kneebone’s largest work to date. In part inspired by Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ and with engaging connections to Rodin’s iconic set of bronze doors ‘The Gates of Hell’
itself inspired by Dante’s ‘Inferno’
Kneebone’s white porcelain sculpture depicts myriad small mutant figures standing in a circle on the rim of a strange orifice-like pit, as if staring into hell itself, teeming with wretched limbs on the slopes below. With references ranging from Bataille to Cormac McCarthy, this apocalyptic vision of humanity and its ungodly demise captures souls condemned to eternal damnation in a sculpture that is as affecting as it is unforgettable. 50 colour illustrations
