Pietà (first version) 1996

Pietà (first version) is a photograph of the artist, naked and slumped over the arms and lap of a stuffed gorilla suit that is sitting on a sofa covered with a white drape. The artist lies with his head thrown back and his eyes closed, gripping the camera’s cable release in his right hand. The title of the work derives from the famous Pietà 1499 (St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City) by Michelangelo (1475–1564), and its composition mimics the pose of the dead Christ in the arms of Mary in Michelangelo’s sculpture. The photograph was taken in the studio that Fairhurst and his former partner, the artist Sarah Lucas (born 1962), hired in 1995 in Clerkenwell Road, London EC1… (read more)