Author Description

Volume II of Art in General's New Commissions Book Series documents Melissa Martin's project, Father, which was the first New Commissions project to be installed in the gallery in 2005. With a foreword by Art in General's executive director, Anne J. Barlow, and an introduction by Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy, former Curator at Art in General, the primary focus of the book is an interview with Martin conducted by artist Janine Antoni, as well as an array of photos that reveal her process and the finished product. For Father Martin created a life-size sculpture of her father out of bubble gum, molding the substance into fragmented body parts which were then packaged and displayed as cuts of meat. Displayed in a custom-built commercial refrigerator, ironically called a coffin in the supermarket industry, Father was sold piece by piece at the end of the exhibition, completing project with the appropriate "meat market" transaction.