Westwood, Martin
Working with mass-produced corporate objects, Martin Westwood constructs works that meditate on capitalist culture and personal freedoms. This is exemplified by Extrusion 24. Geld. The horizontals that construct the female form on the left, and the verticals layered across it, are strongly suggestive of office blinds, while the main dashes of colour throughout come from the scattered pink fragments on the desk and on the window form to the right. The relative sparseness of the scene, however, belies the painting’s layered source material: the pink fragments are in fact cut-outs of muscles from DC comic books, while the word ‘Geld’ in the title refers to both the German word for money and the Old English word for castration. The cut-out pink biceps resemble the wings of dead biological specimens, while their counterparts to the right are enmeshed and ignored. With this reconfiguration of cultural symbols, Westwood subverts notions of male power, ambition, dominance and success.
- Artwork Details: framed, 97 x 140.1 x 7.2cm
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- Material description: paper, newsprint, rubber, vinyl, gouache, metal and pen on board
- Credit line: © the artist
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- Accession number: ACC7/2008