Art & Exhibitions
Michelle Vaughan Marries a King to his Grandmother
THE DAILY PIC: At Theodore:Art, she evokes the results of Habsburg inbreeding
Blake Gopnik
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THE DAILY PIC (#1512): For a little while now, New York artist Michelle Vaughan has been making work about inbreeding within the Habsburg royal lines, and a chunk of her project is now on view at Theodore:Art in Bushwick. Today’s Pic, in colored pencil, is from a series of drawings in which Vaughan overlaps the faces of various closely related male and female Habsburgs. Here we get King Charles II “the Bewitched” of Spain – the product of so much inbreeding he could not himself breed – whom Vaughan has wedded (pictorially) to his grandmother Margaret of Austria. What struck me most about Vaughan’s twinnings is how much they resemble older European caricatures. It looks as though excessive inbreeding produces the same exaggerations and distortions as artists do, by instinct, when they want to cast someone as “other”. (Image courtesy the artist and Theodore:Art)
For a full survey of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.
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