Artwork Information

Carcass is not a photograph of an actual beef carcass but a painted model of one. While one may gain this knowledge after close inspection of the image, it is not instantly apparent when one first sees this image. By ensuring that the photograph looks like a picture of a skinned animal on first sight, Peter Peryer ensures that it is the image which has the shock value; not the fact that it renders a painted model.

By employing uncertainty as part of the photograph’s raison d’etre, Peryer ensures that a tableau photograph seems to be an image of a ‘real’ New Zealand abattoir’s reality.