Your mother sucks cocks in Hell
Marble (fragment of an antique Roman sculpture, 1st-2nd century AD), oak and pigment (fragment of an antique French, Early Gothic sculpture), plywood, carbon steel zinc-plated gold screw
53.5 x 35.6 x 39.7 cm (21 1/16 x 14 x 15 5/8 in.)
Danh Vo's Your Mother Sucks Cock in Hell brings together a fragment of an ancient Roman marble sculpture Roman depicting a child’s legs and the crowned, hieratic face of a 13th century oak Madonna. The obscene title, quoting words spoken by the possessed girl in The Exorcist, allows us to discern the artist's aims: bringing together antagonistic worlds to spur critical and ironic thought about society.
In several works, Danh Vo plays with the spiritual and the pagan, giving fragments of religious sculptures a secular title taken from popular culture. He repeatedly uses licentious quotes from The Exorcist such as Your Mother Sucks Cock in Hell. The curse echoes the profane act of the Virgin’s dismemberment. The play between title and work causes a semantic and cultural short-circuit.
Danh Vo's sculpture Your Mother Sucks Cock in Hell was shown for the first time by the Pinault Collection in 2015 at the "Slip of the Tongue" exhibition at the Punta della Dogana.
© Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo : Aurélien Mole. Courtesy Pinault Collection
Exhibition view "Avant l'orage", Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, 2023
Photo: Stephen White / Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, London
Exhibition view, Homosapiens, Marian Goodman Gallery, London, January 15 - February 21 2015.
