Bring Back The Extinct Northern White Rhino
Bring Back The Extinct Northern White Rhino
The Sacristy Gallery
July 1, 2022 to August 20, 2022
Bring Back the Extinct Northern White Rhino is Victoria Fuller’s tribute to a species of animal that is functionally extinct. The last male northern white rhinoceros, named Sudan, died in 2018. There are two females left. This installation features a realistic life-size replica of a rhino, 13’ x 5’.5” x 4,’ made of vinyl material with a hide of printed faux wrinkles and texture. It inflates and deflates repetitively on a 3 minutes cycle. When deflated, we are reminded that it is extinct; when inflated, it references the magnificence of the species when it was alive, as well as the attempt to bring it back through “artificial reproductive techniques” with frozen sperm and eggs implanted in a closely related subspecies. The inflation and deflation are also like inhaling and exhaling lungs, symbolizing the breath of life. Fuller created the project with a grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs (DCASE) to bring awareness to the extinction of animals in our lifetime.
The idea for making this artwork started with Fuller’s observation of the sad piles of deflated holiday lawn decorations that slump on people’s lawns when the air is taken out of them. Like those lawn decorations, rhinos and many other wild animals are treated like a commodity, with no value as living things beyond the price they can bring at market. Rhinoceroses are killed illegally by poachers for their horns, which are used in the Chinese medicine trade. Other species like the pangolin and bats are used for meat and also used in Chinese medicine. The loss of this animal is a cautionary tale. Human hunting of wild animals and encroachment on their habitats is causing their extinction, and we must do all we can to stop these magnificent creatures from going extinct.
Victoria Fuller is a multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on systems of man and nature and the impact of that nexus, revealing the science behind it all. She plays with appropriated objects, assembled into sculptures and installations, which reflect natural forms, and she makes direct depictions of nature contrasted with human systems, relating to displays in natural history museums.
Based in Chicago, Fuller has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2020 She was awarded the Dean Alan Olson Purchase Award at the Rockford Art Museum and she was awarded Best of Show at the 2021 Evanston and Vicinity Biennial. In 2019 she was awarded the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) Independent Artist Project Grant and an Illinois Arts Council CAAP Grant, in 2009. She also received fellowship awards from Illinois Arts Council and from the Colorado Council on the Arts and Humanities. She completed artist residencies at both Ragdale Foundation and at Sculpture Space. Her large-scale public sculpture “Shoe of Shoes” is in the collection of Caleres Shoes in St. Louis. Her sculptures have been commissioned by Sound Transit in Seattle, Comed in Chicago, and Arts in Transit in St, Louis. Her large-scale public sculpture, titled “Canoe Fan,” was purchased by the city of Ann Arbor and installed in Gallop Park. She has been featured in Sculpture Magazine, Bad at Sports, Hyperallergic, Scientific American Blog, Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune, and Western Art and Architecture Magazine.
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Victoria Fuller is a multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on systems of man and nature and the impact of that nexus, revealing the science behind it all. She plays with appropriated objects, assembled into sculptures and installations, which reflect natural forms, and she makes direct depictions of nature contrasted with human systems, relating to displays in natural history museums.
Based in Chicago, Fuller has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2020 She was awarded the Dean Alan Olson Purchase Award at the Rockford Art Museum and she was awarded Best of Show at the 2021 Evanston and Vicinity Biennial. In 2019 she was awarded the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) Independent Artist Project Grant and an Illinois Arts Council CAAP Grant, in 2009. She also received fellowship awards from Illinois Arts Council and from the Colorado Council on the Arts and Humanities. She completed artist residencies at both Ragdale Foundation and at Sculpture Space. Her large-scale public sculpture “Shoe of Shoes” is in the collection of Caleres Shoes in St. Louis. Her sculptures have been commissioned by Sound Transit in Seattle, Comed in Chicago, and Arts in Transit in St, Louis. Her large-scale public sculpture, titled “Canoe Fan,” was purchased by the city of Ann Arbor and installed in Gallop Park. She has been featured in Sculpture Magazine, Bad at Sports, Hyperallergic, Scientific American Blog, Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune, and Western Art and Architecture Magazine.
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