CHICAGO, Ill. — A gilded coffin lid bearing Oprah’s full-figured likeness by controversial sculptor Daniel Edwards, designed to reach out to the recently retired baby boomers for whom healthcare reform will come too late, lands in Chicago this week. Edwards is offering his latest creation of the television icon to break the ice with baby boomers to encourage them to prepare for their own funerals. The Oprah Sarcophagus, courtesy of NYC’s Leo Kesting Gallery, will be unveiled April 24th, next to Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios at Chicago’s GARDENfresh Gallery.
PRESS unveiling at GARDENfresh Gallery is April 24th, 11:00 AM, at 119 N. Peoria St., phone 312-235-2246. Contact David Kesting at 917-650-3760 or John Leo at 917-292-8865.
“The Oprah Sarcophagus is the ideal visual aid for educating boomers about casket choices and memorial service arrangements,” says gallery co-director John Leo. “We would like to hear Oprah tell her viewers that a great coffin should be something of which to aspire, and that no one should have to settle for a pine box.”
Most beautiful object ever sculpted
The Oprah Sarcophagus collection is filled out with inclusion of the Oprah Burial Mask. “It’s the most beautiful object I’ve ever sculpted,” said artist Daniel Edwards. “Last time I looked, the high bid for it on eBay was only $102.50.” The artist’s proof of the Oprah Burial Mask to be displayed at Chicago’s GARDENfresh Gallery will be at auction at http://www.leokesting.com/auction/ through Sunday.
“The Oprah Burial Mask depicts for the viewer a celebration of an inner beauty for which we could all aspire,” says gallery director David Kesting of the life-sized hollowed bust. “If we each imagined an object that represented us at our most ideal for all eternity, we might hold ourselves to the highest standards, both morally and spiritually.”
Edwards’s previous sculptures include a nude Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug, an interactive autopsy of Paris Hilton with removable organs, and a war dead Prince Harry clutching the cameo-locket of his late mother Princess Diana.
