Original exhibition essay for 'Material Objects', Ruth Switalski and Anthony Brotheridge, Glasgow International 2018. Brotheridge and Switalski present a new body of work exploring their enduring fascination with the classical, responding to the plaster cast collection at Glasgow School of Art and connecting it with the casts in the Hunterian Collection’s Anatomy Museum at Glasgow University. The artists bring these historic collections into a contemporary framework, assessing our continual obsession with classical antiquity while questioning its binary gender stereotypes and stylised body aesthetics.

This original essay was commissioned by Switalski and Brotheridge for the exhibition programme. It explores the historical, contextual and conceptual issues surrounding their creative response to loaned plaster casts from the Glasgow School of Art, as well as to William Hunter’s Gravid Uterus series at the Hunterian Museum of Anatomy. Core aspects addressed include classical revival, issues surrounding the nude, historical artistic studio practice, the implications of aura and reproduction, anatomical specimens and display in relation to the abject, and the display of plaster casts.