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Art & Design

"Lick and Lather" by Janine Antoni, 1993–1994

Antoni uses intimate activities to shape art and explore gender stereotypes

Since the mid-1990s, New York–based artist Janine Antoni has employed her body as a tool, in her words, to create art. In her "Lick and Lather" series, shown here, Antoni molded her own likeness in soap and chocolate, before bathing with the former and licking the latter until the surfaces were abraded and her features obscured. "Lick and Lather" thus upends portrait traditions premised on likeness by erasing the subject and posing questions about cultural definitions of feminine identity.

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Lick and Lather

Artist
Janine Antoni, Bahamian, b. Freeport, 1964
Exhibition History
HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. "At the Hub of Things: New Views of the Collection," 16 October 2014-24 April 2016, no cat.
Credit Line
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Joseph H. Hirshhorn Bequest Fund, 2001
(1993-1994)/(refabricated 2007)
Accession Number
01.9
Type
Sculpture
Medium
Chocolate and soap
Dimensions
Lick: 22 1/2 × 15 1/4 × 9 7/8 in. (57.2 × 38.7 × 25.1 cm) Lather: 20 1/2 × 13 7/8 × 9 3/8 in. (52.1 × 35.2 × 23.8 cm)
School
International Contemporary
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Record ID
hmsg_01.9
Usage of Metadata (Object Detail Text)
Not determined
GUID (Link to Original Record)
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/py22d76cf8a-47ed-4a77-91e5-3451d2a3b8f4
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