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Pieta

Artist (American, b. 1960)
Date2007
MediumCast hydrocal, painted
DimensionsOverall: 28 x 18 x 18 in. (71.1 x 45.7 x 45.7 cm)
Credit LinePurchase, Paul and Miriam Kirkley Fund for Acquisitions
Object number2008.48
Object TypeSculpture
On View
Not on view
In both his public art works, as well as his gallery-bound work, Tony Tasset draws from a variety of populist artistic languages to slyly critique and memorialize the current American condition.

Pieta depicts an older man who holds a youth’s limp form. It draws on Michelangelo’s standing Rondanini Pietà in which the mournful Mary holds the dead body of Christ. Tasset carried this monumental sense of grief into this work, but the figures’ clothes and hair place them securely in the present.

Who are the figures depicted? The sculpture leaves room for speculation and universal meanings, although viewers who know the artist will immediately recognize the figures of the artist and his son Henry (who is alive and well). Like Pieta, much of Tasset’s work during the 2000s explored his conflicting roles as both urban artist and suburban husband and father. Tasset has said, “we all live in our own little kingdoms of desire, fear, consumption and delusion. I thought maybe if I got intimate or honest enough in my work, I could find some shared humanity with my audience.”
Artificial Kills
Tony Tasset
2014
Behind the Lines
Tony Naponic
1983
Never Enough Water
Tony Naponic
1983
Back Up Lady
Tony Naponic
1983
letter
Tony Berlant
June 10, 1971
letter
Tony Berlant
May 2, 1973
letter
Tony Berlant
July 11, 1980
letter
Tony Berlant
December 8, 1981