Hiatus
| Artist | Olivia Parker (American, b. 1941) |
|---|---|
| Title | Hiatus |
| Date | 1982 |
| Medium | Selenium-toned gelatin silver print |
| Dimensions | Image: 13 1/16 × 10 3/4 in. (33.2 × 27.3 cm) Sheet: 13 15/16 × 11 in. (35.4 × 27.9 cm) |
| Credit Line | Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University |
| Accession Number | 83.2.2 |
| This artwork is currently off display. You may be able to see this artwork by filling out an art viewing room request. | |
This image depicts a sculpted human head (marble or plaster) that was broken in half and separated. The two pieces are resting on a surface inscribed with linear diagrams.
Olivia Parker uses a view camera to produce remarkable photographic collages. In the tradition of the great seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish still-life painters, she infuses everyday objects with a sense of mortality. This feeling is enhanced by her intriguing juxtaposition of elements in a shallow field and her split-toning process. Parker describes her choice of objects: “The objects I like, whether alive or dead, are signs of life. Memento mori on a tombstone says remember death, but it also reminds me that someone once lived.” In this image, she uses a small, broken classical sculpture (or its reproductive equivalent) to suggest a gap or interruption in time and space and, perhaps, a disjunction between a feminine ideal of the past and the liberated woman of the present.
Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.
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Cite this page
"Hiatus | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2025. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=83.2.2