Vitro Nasu

Paul Thek Untitled, 1968

Paul Thek, who died of AIDS in 1988, first gained notice with his Technological Reliquaries (1964-67), yellow-tinted Plexiglas boxes that contained realistic wax replicas of human tissue, hair, teeth and bone. Influenced in part by Thek’s complicated attachment to his Catholic faith, these visceral sculptures were later echoed by the more esthetically detached work of Robert Gober, Damien Hirst and Matthew Barney.(Via)

Paul Thek by Peter Hujar
Susan Sontag dedicated her classic book “Against Interpretation” to Paul Thek. (1966)

1959-62 Thek lives in New York. He supports himself by designing textiles at Prince Studios. He meets the writer Susan Sontag. They become close friends. (via)

Chalice from Paul Thek Project
What is PT Project?

This site is dedicated to the installation work of Paul Thek. It is an ongoing project to collect and contextualize documentary photography and other relevant sources around Paul Thek’s environments

Shortcut to a labyrinth of PT’s mind
Objects include – boat <> <> bridge <> <> candle <> <> pyramid

Paul Thek
La Corazza di Michelangelo, 1963

Paul Thek at Rove TV includes many paintings.

Paul Thek Worship Zone by Dennis Cooper. (All you need to know about Paul Thek is here).

Should the artist be a man of the word? Paul Thek came up in the ’50s and ’60s, when it was hard to answer “no,” when “avant-garde artist” became a profession, an idea that repulsed him. Wrestling with this question in 1979, Thek wrote to a priest, “I am OK, still trying to be ‘an artist’ in the secular world . . . as you know, the world is the world, very ‘worldly,’ etc., etc.” He longed for recognition, but had little respect for posturing or artistic orthodoxies, retreating to Europe – and even, late in his life, to a monastery – for long periods.

Thanks to Hal Lam for reminding me about Paul Thek.

Update: Paul Thek & Peter Hujar
(Paul Thek’s Retrospective at the Whitney Museum + a show at Alexander & Bonin – Oct 2010)

Leg with Candle (wax, human hair, leather, cotton and wood)

Three artists pay heartfelt tribute to Elizabeth Murray. (R.I.P Elizabeth Murray from vitro-nasu)
We learned that Robert Gober helped strech her stretchers. Guess what yesterday (Sept 12) was his birthday. Happy birthday Robert!

Sinks at Diabeacon or see more google-gober images here.

A good friend was dying of AIDS at the time Gober was fabricating Subconscious Sink at the very beginning of the epidemic. The sink suggests cleansing rituals, although with no running water there is no ability to wash clean or purify. In this regard, a font of Holy Water comes to mind, but one disabled with no blessed water to sanctify–not an implausible association given Gober’s Catholic background and the emergence in the 1990s of overt religious imagery in his work.(via)

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