Domestic Abstraction

Art

-

DePaul Art Museum

Name/Title

Domestic Abstraction

Entry/Object ID

2018.18

Description

Minimalist composition including red square against fur with one large brown spot in TR.

Artwork Details

Medium

Leather, Wood, Fur

Acquisition

Notes

Collection of DePaul Art Museum; Gift of Nancy and Robert Mollers

Made/Created

Artist

Tasset, Tony

Date made

1986

Ethnography

Notes

American

Inscription/Signature/Marks

Location

Verso/BR

Transcription

[Artist] [title] '1986 'Reframed 1989'

Notes

Inscription Type: black marker

Location

Verso

Transcription

Gallery Labels

Notes

Inscription Type: adhesive labels (2)

Lexicon

Getty AAT

Concept

fur (hair material), hair (material), keratinous material, animal material, biological material, materials (substances), Modern (style or period), organic, design elements (attributes), humor, artistic devices, artistic concepts

Hierarchy Name

Materials (hierarchy name), Styles and Periods (hierarchy name), Attributes and Properties (hierarchy name), Design Elements (hierarchy name), Associated Concepts (hierarchy name)

Facet

Materials Facet, Styles and Periods Facet, Physical Attributes Facet, Associated Concepts Facet

LOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials

Domestic life, Puns (Visual works), Catalog order businesses

Dimensions

Dimension Description

overall; in frame

Width

32 in

Depth

2 in

Length

22 in

Interpretative Labels

Label Type

Cultural/Historical Context

Label

While Tony Tasset is known throughout Chicago for his iconic and campy public sculptures, the artist’s series of Domestic Abstraction works from 1986 through 2013 takes its cue from minimalism, pun, and taxidermy. Often incorporating animal hides into minimal and pristinely framed tableaus, Tasset’s early compositions and their organic materials play on the ideas of domesticity, consumerism, and humor in art history. The quirkily domestic, darkly humored objects of Meret Oppenheim come to mind in relation to this particular series of Tasset’s. Within this work, Tasset texturizes the composition with various materials that are commonly seen around the home, but would often be seen as materials of desire in the form of leather couches, fur rugs, and wooden furniture sets amongst the purchasing-catalogue culture of the 1980s.