Lot 1071 "Caesarean", 1988-1989, oil, acrylic, gold leaf, collage, vent stacks, tubing, mixed media on canvas, signed and dated lower right "Rockmore 88 89", 67" x 92". Unframed. Provenance: Bryant Galleries, New Orleans, Louisiana. ESTIMATE 3000 - 5000

 

Facts: This 88-89 work, pictured in the header, once again combines many of Rockmores favorite subjects and techniques. He seemed to have a fascination with Caesarian sections that started showing up in works around 1985. He then went into a period where he was fascinated with three dimensional tubes and portals and figurines coming out of the canvas. The ropes are all 3D, the portals are plunger heads and the baby that the doctors are delivering is actually a 3D baby under a bubble like glass. You just have to see it in person to begin to fathom it. Rockmore also includes figures from his "Bon Voyage" series as well as "Immigrants" from a future series.

 

Thoughts: Rockmore really captures the whole Caesarean experience on canvas. We are not sure if he watched it himself (he sometimes was allowed to watch surgeries) or if he just read about it in books. Either way, he captures the experience from many perspectives. Having been present for the Caesarean birth of our 5th and last child it is certainly completely different from other birthing experiences. First, as Rockmore captures, you are more in a surgery (white coats) with many more people all around you. The woman seems almost like a detached part of the experience, strapped in, sedated but completely conscious to all of the surreal experience going on around her. This one is going to be analyzed in detail by the experts in the future when the time comes. 

 "Caesarean" should certainly be a part of the museum tour when it happens, please let us know if you win it.