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Christina Forrer — Untitled (Wolves)
Christina Forrer

Untitled (Wolves)

2020

Rendered in cotton and wool at an intimate domestic scale, "Untitled (Wolves)" stages a scene of gleeful carnage against the warm glow of a bucolic sunset. A disembodied wolf head gulps down a human figure whole, while a face embedded within the wolf's own body registers dismay and a fellow wolf, itself beheaded, looks on with apparent ecstasy. The absurdity is precise and deliberate. Forrer uses the physicality of weaving itself as a formal metaphor, allowing the interlocked warp and weft to mirror the entangled figures within the composition, bodies literally woven into one another, conflict made structural rather than merely depicted. Forrer's practice centers on the charged terrain of interpersonal and societal dynamics, translating fraught emotional states into tapestries populated by naïve, rubbery figures whose exaggerated features hover between comedy and menace. The tradition of narrative textile work, with its long history of encoding myth, morality, and spectacle, becomes in her hands a vehicle for something stranger and more psychologically alive. Barely repressed aggression surfaces through a visual vocabulary borrowed from slapstick and folk illustration, grounding what might otherwise read as disturbing in registers of dark humor and empathy. Born in Zürich in 1978 and based in Los Angeles, Forrer has earned significant institutional recognition, with recent solo presentations at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and the Swiss Institute, New York. Her work was included in "Made in L.A. 2020: A Version" at the Hammer Museum, among other prominent group exhibitions. Signed by the artist, this 2020 work is offered through the Swiss Institute Benefit Auction and ships from New York.

Medium
Cotton and wool
Overall
Signed
Yes

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About this work

Christina Forrer, Untitled (Wolves), 2020

Rendered in cotton and wool at an intimate domestic scale, "Untitled (Wolves)" stages a scene of gleeful carnage against the warm glow of a bucolic sunset. A disembodied wolf head gulps down a human figure whole, while a face embedded within the wolf's own body registers dismay and a fellow wolf, itself beheaded, looks on with apparent ecstasy. The absurdity is precise and deliberate. Forrer uses the physicality of weaving itself as a formal metaphor, allowing the interlocked warp and weft to mirror the entangled figures within the composition, bodies literally woven into one another, conflict made structural rather than merely depicted. Forrer's practice centers on the charged terrain of interpersonal and societal dynamics, translating fraught emotional states into tapestries populated by naïve, rubbery figures whose exaggerated features hover between comedy and menace. The tradition of narrative textile work, with its long history of encoding myth, morality, and spectacle, becomes in her hands a vehicle for something stranger and more psychologically alive. Barely repressed aggression surfaces through a visual vocabulary borrowed from slapstick and folk illustration, grounding what might otherwise read as disturbing in registers of dark humor and empathy. Born in Zürich in 1978 and based in Los Angeles, Forrer has earned significant institutional recognition, with recent solo presentations at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and the Swiss Institute, New York. Her work was included in "Made in L.A. 2020: A Version" at the Hammer Museum, among other prominent group exhibitions. Signed by the artist, this 2020 work is offered through the Swiss Institute Benefit Auction and ships from New York.

Medium
Cotton and wool
Dimensions
overall: 91.4 x 121.9 cm
Year
2020
Signed
Hand-signed by the artist
Seen at
Swiss Institute Benefit Auction

Related themes

Mohn Art Collective

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