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June 2, 2015 – Review
Raphael Danke’s “Stoneflesh Aura”
Vincenzo Latronico
![](https://images.e-flux-systems.com/aa_2015_06_1.jpg,1600)
The most striking works in Raphael Danke’s “Stoneflesh Aura” are arrangements of small objects nailed to three unprepared canvases. They catch your eye, then transform two times as you observe them. At first glance, they seem to be shards of pink-red quartz only partially revealed from within the rock that encases them, the kind found in souvenir shops everywhere. As you are drawn nearer by the crystals’ shiny surface, you realize that the rock is in fact a smudged mass of solidified concrete, and the red glow actually comes from bits of glossy paper pasted over it. There’s something funny in the sudden contrast, something of a childish prank—yet before your laugh dies out you realize that what you took to be quartz, then colored paper, is nothing but cut-out pictures of raw red meat, and this is revolting. This mix of sensory fascination, visual irony, and disgust is a signature component in Danke’s work. It most notably characterized his best-known early work, “Entfernungen” [removals], an ongoing series of collages in which Danke reassembled cut-up pictures from fashion magazines in which every trace of human bodies had been removed. The resulting images were both appealing in a fashion spread-like glossy, …