Have you seen this girl? Stenciled in bright red paint, “I 6M STIL7 ALIV3” by Mircea Cantor features the silhouette of Japanese Manga character Annlee. In 1999, artists Philippe Parreno and Pierre Huyghe purchased the rights to Annlee in order to save her character from being retired by the Manga industry. As part of their rescue mission, Hyughe and Parreno invited a number of other artists to use Annlee in their own artworks, in a project called “No Ghost Just a Shell.” Here, Cantor not only declares Annlee’s vitality and independence from her previous Manga life, but also comments on the lifespan of art objects in a Museum setting. By spray painting Annlee directly onto the gallery wall, she can never be de-installed, only destroyed, highlighting the precariousness of her new life as a stencil on the wall.
“I 6M STIL7 ALIV3”, 2004, by Mircea Cantor