German-based artist David Zink Yi creates ceramic dead giant squids through a 1200 degree firing process. Each of these, the largest at 16 feet and 660 pounds, is coated in a lead and copper glaze and all but one occur in a pool of blue ink. The art gallery’s commentary on the exhibit is priceless.
The subject of lore and fine art for centuries, the Architeuthis emerges to human view only at its death, when it washes onto shore and is deposited at the border where the opposing but interdependent worlds of land and sea meet. Zink Yi’s dying squid sprawls across the gallery floor, a body without breath. Its 16-foot, deflated, creamy pale form rests in a pool of glistening dark liquid, provoking the viewer into a powerful encounter with the unfamiliar. Intended less as narration than as a pedestal or frame for the work, this liquid brings the viewer back to awareness of the alchemy involved in its making…Through a literal and figurative trial by fire at more than 1200 degrees centigrade, Zink Yi thus fixes a body at the border of two other opposing but interdependent worlds: the realms of grotesque and the precious.
Reminds me of red wine description I once encountered: asphalt and bacon fat.
Yes, it is cool, kind of gross and thoroughly engrossing, unlike the flavors of asphalt and bacon fat.
“”Awww, you guys made me ink!”
Loved the commentary, and didn’t find it the least bit humorous or strange. It makes perfect sense to me. Thanks for posting this, it’s utterly beautiful in that otherworldly way.