HELEN CHADWICK
Chadwick’s literal approach establishes an immediate dialogue with the viewer. As I looked at the first Meat Abstract, I couldn’t help thinking that a reconsideration of vegetarianism might be in order. In this first piece, several yellow gelatinous balls with fine red veins are scattered about on a soft pale orange cloth. A vertical seam of heavy thread runs up the cloth several inches from the right edge of the image–the stitches look like sutures. To the right of this seam are two butter knives of fine old silver and one chicken drumstick. To the left of the seam is a long slender piece of gristle, repulsively mauve and membranous. A cluster of vertically arranged silverware lies to its left. Completing this unsavory place setting is a neat length of cloth the color of dried blood running across the bottom quarter of the image.
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Again we see the themes of physical boundaries and the desire to see the unseeable. But the overt equalizing of human and chicken allows for a wonderful layer of absurdity lacking in the more refined and solemn Polaroids. The humor is reinforced by the shape of the piece, which seems arbitrary and therefore farcical. Even the title seems to poke fun at our need to rhapsodize about, analyze, and agonize over the human spirit. By focusing on the metaphysical, we reassure ourselves that we are superior to other earthly creatures. On a physical level, though, we have to admit we are equal.
