Marc Quinn

Marc Quinn (London, 1964) is one of the most interesting of the Young British Artists, whose main tenet he particularly agrees with: the need to bring real life into art and not to just make art for oneself. After graduating in art history from Cambridge University, in 1984 Quinn started to produce sculptures in London, where, in 1991, he exhibited a work that gained him international notoriety: Self, a reflection on mortality made with the artist's blood. Quinn, who has participated in various major exhibitions - for instance, "Sensation" at the Royal Academy of Arts in London (1997) - became famous for his use of such unorthodox materials as bread, blood, excrement, silicon, ice and, more recently, plants and flowers. Beginning with an analysis of the physical nature of the body and the mysteries associated with this, he addresses the fundamental themes of our existence.
As he puts it: "I am dealing thus with the fundamental mysteries of existence - says Quinn - the enigma of birth and death. It concerns us all in a direct way. And since there are no answers, our questions must always return to this theme."