Cat

Artist Rona Pondick (American, b. 1952)

Date2005

Dimensions4 1/2 x 33 x 14 1/8 in. (11.4 x 83.8 x 35.8 cm)

Mediumstainless steel

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds given by Ruth and Jacob Bloom and with Museum Purchase funds, by exchange

Object number

2007.30

Not on View

Label TextHow is it possible that we all have such different responses to the same thing? What one person finds hysterically funny the next person is appalled by and finds incredibly disturbing. Just think about the emotional range we all go through in a single day. It’s really quite vast. I want all of that in my own work. Throughout her career Rona Pondick’s art has straddled the line between seductive and repulsive. Cat fuses human features with an animal body to create a sculpture that achieves a dreamlike melding of human, beast, and steel. Making these hybrid forms allows Pondick to combine traditional sculptural modeling with rapid-prototyping technology (converting 3D computer models into physical objects). These bizarre beings address self-portraiture (she casts her own body for the human components), anxieties about genetic engineering, and are even evocative of children’s fairytales in which human and animal are sometimes magically mixed.Published ReferencesPondick, Rona, Rona Pondick: works/werke 1986-2008, Salzburg, Internationales Sommerakademie für Bildende Kunst, 2008, p. 34, fig. 44, p. 35 (col.).

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 357, repr. (col.).