Bytes: Gillie and Marc

Caution: some risqué content

I needed to attend premises at Mascot (for overseas readers, a suburb of Sydney near the airport) yesterday in connection with a legal matter. I grabbed a cab and, arriving at the destination, the cabbie drove through the entry gates up to the front of the building and stopped facing this:

WTF I said, with which the cabbie concurred. The figures on the Vespa are life size and, from what I glimpsed of the man-dog (or is that dog-man?) anatomically correct, see photo below, even if not species accurate.

I then noticed another man-dog in the garden:

For those interested, the sculptures are at 290-292 Coward Street, Mascot.

Some other pics:

Later I did some googling, learned who the artists were and some of the background to their art.

The artists are Gillie and Marc:

The following is from Wikipedia at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillie_and_Marc

Gillie and Marc Schattner are an Australian collaborative artist couple. Gillie and Marc are known for their animal, human-animal hybrid and abstract sculptures, which have been exhibited as public works of art around the world. They also produced many paintings, street art and people statues.

Personal life:
Gillie and Marc met in 1990 on a film shoot in Hong Kong, where Gillie was a model and Marc was the creative director. She is Catholic and he is Jewish.[6] They married seven days after they met, in a Hindu ceremony.[6] They have lived in Singapore, and New York, and now live in Sydney.

Art career:
Marc studied graphic design at Swinburne, Melbourne, while Gillie received no formal art training. Prior to collaborating, Gillie worked as a model, and Marc was an artist from Melbourne working in an advertising agency. The Schattners first exhibited as a pair in Singapore in 1990. Upon returning to Australia in 1999, they had a joint exhibition called Life Can’t Wait, painting portraits of twenty Australians who face death and were on the organ waiting list. The project was sponsored by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service and was used to create awareness and encourage the public to sign up to be organ donors. In 2006 they were Archibald Prize finalists for a portrait of former Olympic swimmer John Konrads representing his battle with bi-polar disorder. They made their first hybrid human-animal heads in 2005; they created the characters Dogman and Rabbitgirl, (who later became Rabbitwoman) in 2011. Their work has been stolen, and the nude figures have generated controversy.

Public Sculptures

The Paparazzi Dogs
In 2013 Gillie and Marc created a series of sculptures depicting a dog holding a camera, which were exhibited in Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai and New York City.

The Last Three
In March 2017, Gillie and Marc announced plans to build what they claimed would be the "world's largest rhino sculpture" in Astor Place New York's East Village to raise awareness for rhino conservation. On March 14, 2018 the17-feet tall sculpture was unveiled, representing Sudan, Najin and Fatu - the last three Northern White Rhinos. Coincidentally, 3 days after the installation of The Last Three, Sudan, the last male Northern White Rhino died. Flowers were brought to the sculpture's base.

The art-critic Jerry Saltz called the work "a Kitschy Monstrosity," saying it was "an ugly, bathos-filled folly that proves my adage that 95 percent of all public sculpture is crap" and "little more than a place to take selfies."

Other Works:
Other Rhino sculptures have been installed in city of Dubbo, Australia, La Trobe University, and Sydney's Tamarama Beach where the sculpture won the Allen's People's Choice Award and Kids' Choice Award after it survived a king tide. They have also made sculptures of lions, tigers, and other animals.

The following is from their website at:

https://gillieandmarc.com/pages/about

Referred to by the media as “the world’s most loving artists”, this artistic duo has worked side by side for 27 years, creating art as one and spreading the love they have for each other with the world. The artists first met on a film shoot in Hong Kong and 7-days later they ran away to Nepal to get married on the foothills of Mount Everest. They’ve been inseparable ever since.

The artists are best known for their beloved characters, Rabbitwoman and Dogman, who tell the autobiographical tale of two opposites coming together to become best friends and soul mates. As unlikely animal kingdom companions, the Rabbit and the Dog stand for diversity and acceptance through love. Gillie and Marc believe art is a powerful platform for change. Their art is multi-disciplinary, paying homage to the importance of togetherness, as well as the magnificence of the natural world, and the necessity of preserving it – for we are it, and it is us.

Gallery: