Jars of Frogs
Producing this Atelopus piece has been draining in several ways and equally as exhilarating. In producing Atelopus I have driven to New York City to pick up these old collection jars from the American Museum of Natural History and two trips to Lawrence, Kansas to cast master molds from the University of Kansas Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center where some the leading research is being done on amphibians and their decline. Over the past four months this project has consumed the vast portion of my time and money. The frogs have been cast from the original plaster master molds into silicon rubber and back again into either urethane plastic or silicon rubber to achieve these ghost-like effects. Strontium Aluminate and other phosphorescent chemicals have been added to give these frogs a life that defies their static situation.
Most of the highland species of Atelopus toads (frogs) have gone extinct in just the past few years.
This collection of 94 jars correlates with the 94 pages in Marcel Duchamp's "Green Box" that provided the opportunity to show this Atelopus piece. Duchamp's notes on his "Large Glass, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even" contain enigmatic ghost-like reference to the forth dimension that have been spread out into an edition of 320 boxes that were supposedly the same but are not as
Steven J. Gould and his wife Rhonda Roland Shearer discovered.
Now I have the opportunity to draw direct reference from Duchamp's multidimensional philosophy to look for
some greater meaning in this collection of now extinct toads and frogs.
These jars are priced at
$150 each.
technical info here
For more information or
to purchase one please email me at:
tracy@tracyhicks.com
or phone me at:
214 948 0609
I will add more images and text as time allows.
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Jars of Frogs
4 Feb 03
223 North Shore
Dallas, TX
75216-1030
214 948 0609