Victor Bengtsson
78 3/4 x 70 7/8 in
Donna Haraway’s writings about the figure of the Oncomouse as a surrogate for human suffering has been a key reference for Bengtsson: “OncoMouseTM is my sibling, and more properly, male or female, s/he is my sister... Although her promise is decidedly secular, s/he is a figure in the sense developed within Christian realism: s/he is our scapegoat; s/he bears our suffering; s/he signifies and enacts our mortality in a powerful, historically specific way that promises a culturally privileged kind of secular salvation—a ‘cure for cancer’” (Haraway, 1997: 79). The painting represents a specimen of Oncomouse standing on its back legs like a martyr in the foreground while stepping on a sickly human face, with its long tail tucking itself into the hair. The background of the painting shows a pair of lungs that are afflicted with a severely metastasised cancer and brings forth the relation between the two figures: a new form of life destined to suffer from this terrible illness in order to develop treatments for human bodies.
Bibliography:
-Haraway, D. (1997) Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium.FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouse, Routledge: New York, London