Angelina Jolie Is the Latest Victim of Daniel Edwards' Sleazeball Statuary

Daniel Edwards, the New York-based artist who brought us such sculptural creepiness as Britney Spears giving birth, Suri Cruise's first poop, and an autopsied Paris Hilton attended by her chihuahua, has made yet another strangely discomfiting move along his career path as a cheezy attention whore an artist.

He now brings us Landmark for Breastfeeding, a life-size Angelina Jolie sitting naked while simultaneously breastfeeding twins:

Inspired by a cover of W magazine, Edwards' sculpture, to be unveiled on September 11th in Oklahoma City, shows Angelina breastfeeding both Vivienne and Knox, her and Brad Pitt's twins. To make note of Angelina's humanitarian work, Edwards has chosen to depict one of the infants as being of African ancestry.

Do you see what he did there? He gave this sculpture levels. But wait. There's more.

"Hopefully, my sculpture inspires an increase of wetnurses to assist women who have concerns about mastitis, or passing HIV to their infant," Edwards said.

That's right. This sculpture expresses Daniel Edwards concern for the need of wetnurses. We're verging on meaning and profundity here.

I feel so thoroughly inspired. Doesn't this sculpture just make you want to run out and feed the world's children with your breasts?

Comments

[mouthy_broad (michele)]

um, i don't even know what to say about any of that.

[Brian]

I'm lactating just looking at it.

[schmutzie]

Ha!

[LoLa]

No end to creepiness for cash.

[Palinode]

I said "Statuary rape!" while Schmutzie was writing this post.

But she thought it was too tasteless to use.

And I agree.

[schmutzie]

I'm putting you on notice.

[AmyC65]

How did that lovely, intimate photo of a beaming new mom "inspire" that piece of shit?

[tonya]

Um, he wants it to inspire wetnurses because of "mastitis"? Pretty sure there aren't hords of women running away from breastfeeding because of the possibility of mastitis. But show them this sculpture and they'll go running for the nearest formula bottle they can find!

[Alyssa]

All of his comments and explanations make me feel icky. I feel like there maybe could have been a good message in there somewhere... if he wasn't so apparently batshit crazy.

[DianaCLT]

Dude. His other statues? And the commentary for each? *SHIVERS*

What do the celebs, whom he "honored" by making statues of them, think of his "work?" If I was Michelle Obama, I'd be opening a can of whoop-ass. Same for Oprah, re: her "Sarcophagus." Yeech.

[emdub]

ok... listen all.. his sculptures are about how we elevate pop icons to a status that in the past, would be commemorated in a gilded statue. And while elevating them, we also degrade them by wanting to be SO close to them by knowing intimate details about their lives, and most often their bodies- we want to put them on a pedestal, and them knock them down to our level when we obsess and snicker about their weightloss, who they kiss, who they fuck, etc.

The sculptures are not about the celebrities themselves, they are about how WE create celebrities. And for those people who don't get that, who need an "explanation", he provides the type of explanantion you would get from a celebrities PR company- it's totally tongue-in-cheek.

And he's not getting rich doing it, so that's not why either. It's a pop-cultural critique.. like MamaPop, perhaps?

[schmutzie]

emdub, not living under a rock, I am absolutely aware of this level of discussion about Edwards' sculptures of the rich and famous, but the mere fact that this explanation can be applied to them does not hinder room for there to be critical opinions about his fame-whoring and/or disingenuousness.

I do find his discussion of pop iconography somewhat interesting but the sculptures he uses to discuss it are not interesting enough elevate him into the discussion. Frankly, I find his work lacking in dynamism and derivative (see Jeff Koons).

[JChevais]

The Britney statue scares me.

I hate shock art. It's a cheap way for an artist to get himself noticed. It doesn't require skill. It requires desperation.

[Palinode]

Yes, I think most of MamaPop's readership understands the artist's critique (y'all are a smart bunch). But we're still skeeved out.

[Palinode]

If I were a rich man, I'd commission Edwards to decorate my estate with his sculptures. I say this in jest, but now that I write it out, it sounds awesome. I'd take people on tours and watch them try to maintain a polite demeanour as they sit on a bench next to a crowning Britney Spears.

And now to go out and get rich.