Daneyal Mahmood is very pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new work by Stephen j Shanabrook. Known for his expression of beauty on the threshold of death and disaster, Shanabrook mixes an impressive array of materials – from chocolate, in his sculpture of suicide bomber and his acclaimed Morgue Chocolates, to various melted plastic objects in his Lollipop series. Shanabrook gives a new and often disturbing meaning to substances otherwise associated with comfort and happiness – chocolate, toys and lollipops. The artist has created an innovative process of melting and pressing together ready-made plastic producing a fossilized still life of contemporary culture.

“ What does it mean when a person sacrifices his life for a cause? In times of high individualism, when a person perceives his own life and his body as the ultimate work of art as well as a commercial venture which is supposed to bring them the new mantra of today – self-fulfillment – it looks as if sacrificing one’s life for an ideal is passé. Stephen j Shanabrook’s show “Licking Your Wounds”, however, reflects that death and sacrifice are very much present in today’s fight for higher ideological causes.

The chocolate figure of the suicide bomber reminds us that those who use their bodies as tools of destruction somehow believe in the sweet doors of heavenly enjoyment beyond life here and now. But the bones that decorate the flag entitled “These Colors Don’t Run” make us remember that sweet idea of exporting one’s ideals comes at a heavy price.

If melted bones make us feel anxious because of the violence and war they symbolize, then the lollipop sculptures in a reverse way return us to the innocence of childhood. However, when we observe that this plastic sweetness actually covers up the threat of violence, we get an uncanny feeling that even the most innocent consumer objects can be just masks of death and destruction.

Chocolate melts at the temperature of the living body. In Shanabrook’s art melting has come to a stand still. What we are left with are the fossils of what used to be life, but is now just a remnant of it – an emblem. The suicide bomber and the flag are two very different symbols, however, they are both whispering the Siren’s song. They both offer the promise of immortality. But as we know from the Odyssey, the island of the Sirens is heaped with bones melting in the sun. “

by Renata Salecl