In this interview from 1993 Polly talks about her appreciation for Andres Serrano - I can definitely see the influence/parallels with his provocative body horror, especially in Rid Of Me era.
https://www.nme.com/features/dead-lambs ... arm-757152Quote:
I ask Polly about studying art, and about her admiration for the work of Andres Serrano, the New York-based artist who got notoriety by suspending a plastic crucifix in a glass of his own urine. Following on from Piss Christ, there’s been a trend for artists such as Kiki Smith and Marc Quinn to devote themselves to making art from bodily fluids.
It’s not really a stretching point to see this trend in Polly’s songs, in ‘Dry’ for example, which is about her vaginal/emotional aridity, or on the excoriating ‘Rub ’Til It Bleeds’. So is she consciously echoing this stuff?
“Well, the last thing I saw was in New York. I went to see the Serrano exhibition of morgue photos. They made you feel a lot of things – one minute I’d feel really horrified and appalled and the next minute I’d think, this isn’t working at all, this looks really staged and I don’t feel anything for these people.
“He’s just done loads of ‘cum’ pictures. Do you find things like that really turn your stomach? I never feel physically sick by things like that, and I wonder if it’s because I’ve had to deliver lambs and stuff, when I was younger. I used to ring all the lamb’s tails and ring the testicles. I’d clear up dead lambs when they came out in bits – because sometimes they’d decompose inside the sheep and you’d’ take them out bit by bit. And I wonder if it’s hardened my stomach to things like that.”
Does it stop you getting sentimental?
“Yeah, it does.”