Radioactive Cats and Red Foxes
Radioactive Cats
©1980 Sandy Skoglund
cibachrome color photograph; approx. image area 25 1/2″ X 33″
Sculpted plaster cats and live models
Logan Lecture Series
Wednesday evening Last month, I attended an artist talk by Sandy Skoglund, the 4th talk in the Spring 2009 Logan Lecture Series at the Denver Art Museum. Sandy’s talk was the by far my favorite.
The general format for these talks has been for the artist to cover their art career in chronological order, pretty much from start to present day, while flipping through an online slide presentation. Sandy’s talk was no exception.
While all of them have been interesting, Sandy’s in particular was was thoughtful, articulate and packed full of great content.
As with all the other speakers, the Denver Art Museum was the first museum to purchase a piece of Sandy’s artwork. The installation for Fox Games is currently on display and is definitely worth a visit to see it in person.
In the installation the foxes are gray and everything else is red, which is reversed from the photo below. She painted the foxes after the photos and redid all of the props in red and exhibited the photos and the installation together.
These are my vague memories of her talk as I’ve lost my notes and it’s been a while since the talk.
Making Money and Things
When Sandy finished her MFA in the early 70’s there was a definite bias against making money from art (has that changed?). It didn’t take long for Sandy to reject this notion and the feeling of her photography was intentionally pushed to look like the commercial photography of the time. Bright colors that really popped.
For those not familiar with her work, generally she sets up installations and photographs them. Prior to the piece above, Radioactive Cats, the installations were made with commodity items, like plastic hangers.
With Radioactive Cats she started making the things that went into the installations, such as all the very cool green cats. She said at these time she felt her work was no longer conceptual and was about making things, which was also not the mainstream direction of the art world.
For Sandy, creating the items she photographs was very important to her and she enjoys the hours and hours of time crafting the objects. She loves crafts and specifically mentioned Fiberarts Magazine (yay – go fiber).
She had a whole lot more to say and share and I was captivated by her speaking. I definitely recommend looking into her work and if you can hear her speak, most definitely do. And apologies for anything I might have gotten wrong in this bit.
In Print
I looked for books with Sandy’s work and only came up with these out of print ones:
Reality Under Siege (
Focus: Five Women Photographers
Sandy’s Website is here: Sandy Skoglund. I’m bummed the flash player refused to work in either of my browsers, but still some interesting content, including some interviews.
Fox Games
© 1989 Sandy Skoglund
cibachrome color photograph; approx. image area 46 1/4″ X 63″
Sculpted epoxy resin foxes and live models
Posted by Lisa in: Artists
