The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 24, 2024

Feast of Fools (Mexico City)

Feast of Fools (Mexico City)

1990
(American, 1939-)
America, 20th century
photogravure
Image: 27.9 x 34 cm (11 x 13 3/8 in.); Paper: 50.4 x 60.3 cm (19 13/16 x 23 3/4 in.); Matted: 55.9 x 66 cm (22 x 26 in.)
Anonymous Donor and Photographers + Friends United Against AIDS 1995.204.12
© 1990 Joel-Peter Witkin
Location: not on view

Description

The choice of objects in this provocative still life conveys a chilling sense of the macabre. Among the luscious fruits and vegetables, Witkin arranged dismembered hands, feet, and the autopsied corpse of an infant, all garnered from a morgue in Mexico City where he organized and photographed this grim composition. To Witkin, the photograph symbolizes "the darkness of the unknowable."
  • Anonymous Donor
    December 4, 1995
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Reproduced: P. 398
  • Trophies of the Hunt: Capturing Nature as Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 24-November 3, 2004).
    Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; 7/24/04 - 11/3/04. "Trophies of the Hunt: Capturing Nature as Art". No exhibition catalogue.
  • {{cite web|title=Feast of Fools (Mexico City)|url=false|author=Joel-Peter Witkin, Portfolio II published by Photographers + Friends United Against AIDS|year=1990|access-date=24 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1995.204.12