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Canopic Jar 1989
Magic marker on paper
Paper 81 x 54 in. / 206 x 137 cm | Frame 85 x 57 in. / 216 x 145 cm
Signed Rene Ricard lower edge with red pencil
Canopic Jar / The Pharaoh’s brains were removed through his nose with a needle. How many brains have
been removed through the nose and by a needle? The soul of the departed goes West
Canopic jars were used to hold the organs of embalmed bodies in ancient Egypt to preserve what they saw as the “viscera of the soul” for the afterlife. The brain, which was considered unimportant, was removed via the nose and discarded. The heart, as the “seat” of the soul, was left in the body. In the afterlife, it was believed, the heart would be weighed against Ma’at’s feather of truth by the god Anubis. If it was too heavy from bad deeds it would be fed to the monster Ammit. Ricard alludes to another monster in this monumental drawing: addiction, which had claimed the life of his close friend Jean-Michel Basquiat months earlier in 1989.
The final line in this poem is perhaps a reference to D.H. Lawrence who wrote: “The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom.” The west is a potent symbol of wild, free, self-determination, but here is positioned as a liminal afterlife. Ricard suggests that the hearts of those most desperate for freedom might outweigh Ma’at’s feather.
