TIM NOBLE (B. 1966) & SUE WEBSTER (B. 1967)
Sacrificial Heart
signed and numbered '2/3 Tim Noble and Sue Webster' (on a label affixed to the work)
white turbo reflector caps, lamps, holders, painted aluminium stainless steel, fibreglass and electronic light sequencer
121 x 77 x 50in. (307.3 x 195.6 x 127cm.)
Executed in 2007, this work is number two from an edition of three plus two artist's proofs

Gagosian, London.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2008.

London, Gagosian, Sacrificial Heart, 2007 (another from the edition exhibited).
Moscow, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture , Un Certain État du Monde ?, 2009.

Executed in 2007, and acquired by the present owner the following year, Sacrificial Heart is a work of dazzling virtuosic irreverence by Tim Noble and Sue Webster. Rendered in fibreglass, painted aluminium and stainless steel, it is a monumental sculpture of a bleeding heart, wrapped in an octopus tentacle. A sword pierces its side, three drops of blood hanging from its tip. Standing three metres tall, the work is studded with hundreds of coloured lights, which flash in different sequences as the entire sculpture rotates on its base.

Sacrificial Heart is closely related to Noble and Webster’s iconic 1997 work Toxic Schizophrenia, as well as the gigantic 2007 sequel Toxic Schizophrenia / Hyper Version: the artists’ first permanent public sculpture, created to reside outside the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. All three works channel the same iconography, combining references to the Christian emblem of the Sacred Heart with echoes of punk and biker tattoos. The artists’ use of light, meanwhile—a hallmark of their practice since the 1990s—evokes the flashy illuminated signs of Las Vegas and British seaside fairgrounds. Coming to prominence during the heyday of the Young British Artists (YBAs), Noble and Webster have long delighted in the fusion of high and low culture. Here, the aesthetics of kitsch consumerism are brought to bear on a work suffused with pain, desire, seduction and betrayal. Its immaculate engineering, meanwhile, invites comparison with the work of Jeff Koons: notably his Hanging Heart (1994-2006), which hung opposite the present work at the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow in 2009.