Skip to main content

Urs Fischer creates candle sculpture of Leonardo DiCaprio and his parents


Some sculptures are built from stone and are meant to be as permanent as possible. Others are made to be deliberately short-lived, like this monumental art piece by Urs Fisher. His latest wax figure, Leo (George & Irmelin), depicts Leonardo DiCaprio with his parents. Presented at the Gagosian Gallery, Paris, the sculpture is composed of a double portrait of the Hollywood actor. One portrays him talking to his dad, who is standing separately, and the other—which is linked to the first like a conjoined twin—portrays him hugging his mom, both of them smiling.

The Swiss artist began to create candle sculptures in the early 2000s. Last year, he made a
larger-than-life-size wax figure depicting Russian art collector and founder of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Dasha Zhukova. As with all of Fischer's candle sculptures, Leo (George & Irmelin) will melt slowly over the course of the exhibition, a poetic and visual reminder of the mortality we all must face.




It will be on view until December 20, 2019.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

New Davis Guggenheim documentary examines the mind of Bill Gates

The trailer for a three-part docuseries examining the life of Bill Gates in all of its complexity has just been released. Directed by Davis Guggenheim ( An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get Loud ), Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates will focus on the tech visionary's post-Microsoft life as he pursues unique solutions to some of the world's most persistent problems. It comes to Netflix on September 20.

The Adorable Sculptures of Yen Yen Lo

These images are from a series of wall sculptures created by Yen Yen Lo . Here you can see her intricately textured ceramic pieces, looking downright adorable. Yen Yen Lo's eye for the unique and whimsical is delightful. Apparently they are not intended for kids under 16. Fifteen-year-olds cannot be trusted with fragile stuff. Get them a Funko Pop instead.

The Art of Nicola Samori

Does Nicola Samori ever underwhelm? The Italian painter and sculptor caught my attention some two years ago, when I stumbled upon his work on Artsy . Samori creates dark, Baroque-inspired oil paintings by layering and fusing images on canvas, wood or other objects. His work stems from fear, and his process involves "skinning" his painted figures with a palette knife or thinner and painting over the surfaces multiple times to achieve deep-seated results. "Peeling off the faces make it possible for all the neglected parts of a representation to come to light and, as far as I am concerned, they all work even better without any kind of control," Samori explained in a  2012 interview . "I don't know what it is that gives a person their identity, it's such complex matter. I definitely don't think a portrait can eventually give it back because you can always perceive its author behind its eyes; well, maybe others' portraits (even their removal,...