Zoe Buckman’s Life Force
After the British artist Zoe Buckman had her first child in 2011—a daughter, Cleo—with her husband the actor David Schwimmer, a midwife told the artist that her placenta had depleted dangerously, that she had been close to losing the baby. It was a postpartum blow, but one that awoke an artistic inquiry into the organ that both gives life and takes it away. Buckman had her placenta cast in plastic, and since then has created a series of works—neon light sculptures, photographs of week-old flower arrangements wrapped in black bags like the departed—that reflect on just how fluid the divide between life and death can be.
“Present Life” is on view through March 28, 2015, at New York’s Garis & Hahn, 263 Bowery.
Untitled 2, 2013 by Zoe Buckman. Courtesy the Artist and Bethanie Brady Artist Management.
Untitled 9, 2013 by Zoe Buckman. Courtesy the Artist and Bethanie Brady Artist Management.
Untitled 3, 2012 by Zoe Buckman. Courtesy the Artist and Bethanie Brady Artist Management.
Untitled 6 (Present Life), 2013 by Zoe Buckman. Courtesy the Artist and Bethanie Brady Artist Management.
Untitled 7 (Present Life), 2013 by Zoe Buckman. Courtesy the Artist and Bethanie Brady Artist Management.
Untitled 14 (Present Life) 2015 by Zoe Buckman. Courtesy the Artist and Bethanie Brady Artist Management.
