Art in Flesh: Andrew Krasnow

Andrew Krasnow is an artist who creates works largely crafted out of dried and cured human skin. His works are ghastly and amazing; unfortunately, his web site is filled with the worst sort of stereotypical profound artist pooftery.

For example, about his American flag made out of human skin above, his website says:

Andrew Krasnow...uses radical materials that deliver metaphors through the ability to shock. In 1990, when the artist turned his attention to the subject of war, he began making American flags from skin because it seemed integral to the symbolic foundation of this work.

Got that? What he's saying is that Krasnow uses human skin to make flags made out of human skin because it is integral to the symbolism of making flags made out of human skin to make the flags out of human skin. Whew.

The site continues:

The choice of human skin, specifically that of Caucasians, is of equal import because of our perverse fascination with skin, and our selective use of it for myth-making, propaganda and other orchestrated purposes to justify our aims, to gloss over our past, or as a pretext for war.

Which is all fair enough, but to an astute observer, it said all that with the silent conviction of its own symbolism. Dear artists: stop explaining your work. It either says what you want to say or it doesn't.

American Skin, An Installation [Artist's Site]