Perishables 2
Artist:
James Cobb
(American, born 1951)
Place made:United States
Date: 1990
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
34 5/16 x 64 1/4 in. (87.2 x 163.2 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of ArtPace, A Foundation for Contemporary Art / San Antonio, to the Margaret Pace Willson Collection of Contemporary Art
Object number: 99.14
Copyright: © James Cobb
Label Text
"I'll allow stuff to be unresolved and abstract and
maybe ambivalent. I have a hard time doing some-
thing that is too static, too frozen in a single moment.
I fight that constantly, try to spread it out into a
longer moment maybe. . . . I love color and I want
to seduce (people) into looking at something that
they would ordinarily not want to look at."
James Cobb
Cobb's paintings reflect the way he sees the material world: an illusion that appears always as being alive, energetic, and bustling with vitality. Inspired by the Dutch still life tradition of vanitas paintings — depictions of skulls accompanied by the remains of gluttonous meals finely rendered as symbols of life's temporality — Cobb invented his own still life compositions using a contemporary sensibility. In this example, various varieties of foods (a chicken drumstick, fish and fish bones, vegetables, all topped with large globs of brightly colored gelatin) merge together to form a heap pile of flowing lines and rich sensuous colors, tempting our visual senses the way the smells of a feast appeal to our taste buds. With the food infested with clusters of ants, the imagery is intended more as a metaphoric still life than as a literal representation. Simply put, the painting reminds us how easy it is to be seduced or repelled by appearances.
(David Rubin, Label Text 2007)
maybe ambivalent. I have a hard time doing some-
thing that is too static, too frozen in a single moment.
I fight that constantly, try to spread it out into a
longer moment maybe. . . . I love color and I want
to seduce (people) into looking at something that
they would ordinarily not want to look at."
James Cobb
Cobb's paintings reflect the way he sees the material world: an illusion that appears always as being alive, energetic, and bustling with vitality. Inspired by the Dutch still life tradition of vanitas paintings — depictions of skulls accompanied by the remains of gluttonous meals finely rendered as symbols of life's temporality — Cobb invented his own still life compositions using a contemporary sensibility. In this example, various varieties of foods (a chicken drumstick, fish and fish bones, vegetables, all topped with large globs of brightly colored gelatin) merge together to form a heap pile of flowing lines and rich sensuous colors, tempting our visual senses the way the smells of a feast appeal to our taste buds. With the food infested with clusters of ants, the imagery is intended more as a metaphoric still life than as a literal representation. Simply put, the painting reminds us how easy it is to be seduced or repelled by appearances.
(David Rubin, Label Text 2007)
Not on view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
