We all remember a time when Kate Moss didn’t speak. Or rather, she presumably did speak—ordered coffee, called her friends, complained about flight attendants—but to the public, Kate Moss was completely silent. Kate was a billboard, a magazine cover, a paparazzi flash. She was wordlessly everywhere, omnipresent, never complaining, never explaining. It’s hard now to remember just how powerful that silence was. Fame today comes with an obligation to narrate itself. Celebrities post their breakfasts, their skincare routines, their holidays, and their Notes-app apologies. They issue statements before anyone has bothered to ask the question. We know what people are thinking because they tell us, often several times before lunch. In the mid-2000s, Kate Moss was the last of a generation of celebrities who could be both everywhere and unknowable at the same time. The less Kate said, the more there was to say about her.

Human beings have always had an extraordinary talent for turning images into objects of belief. We carved gods from stone, cast them in bronze, gilded saints that shimmered in candlelight. We’ve painted monarchs larger than life and projected movie stars 30 feet high. Every civilization invents an image that carries its aspirations. The technology changes while the instinct remains.

Before Marc Quinn began making Siren, he had spent years sculpting bodies historically excluded from the classical tradition. This body of work culminated in Alison Lapper Pregnant (2005), a subversive break from the “statues of dead blokes who conquered the world,” publicly showcasing a disabled woman. Having considered bodies society did not traditionally idealize, Quinn then asked himself the opposite question: If society could agree on one perfect body, whose would it be? The answer, in 2006, was embarrassingly obvious: Kate Moss. It feels almost quaint now, the idea that an entire culture could more or less agree on one woman.

The pose itself refuses to settle into portraiture. It isn’t the Kate Moss from a Calvin Klein campaign or a paparazzi photograph. It’s often misunderstood as a sexual image, but it hovers somewhere between yoga—a practice of people trying to connect their insides and outsides—devotion, and impossible elegance. It isn’t trying to capture Kate Moss’s body. By the time Quinn sculpted Kate, the image had already detached. That’s perhaps the strangest thing about images: we imagine they’re fixed, when really they’re collaborative. It is the audience that gives meaning to an image. Every generation remakes its icons by projecting something new onto them, which is why Siren feels more contemporary now than it did in 2008.

Quinn’s distinction between person and image, once an occupational hazard of extraordinary fame, has become an ordinary feature of ordinary life. We all have an image now, the difference being one of scale. We curate ourselves. We edit ourselves. We perform ourselves. We produce tiny public versions of ourselves that wander around the internet collecting other people’s projections. Rather than end image worship, the internet franchised it, which makes Siren feel unexpectedly prophetic. It captures the last moment when a culture could concentrate its collective imagination on one woman before that imagination fractured into billions of smaller mirrors.

Gold was the only material Siren could have been made from; it is precious because we agree it is. Gods are gods because we agree they are. Images become icons because we agree to see more than a person. For a moment, Kate Moss was one of those images. By then, she scarcely needed to speak. Siren is what collective belief looks like when it hardens into gold.

Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs Exclusive First Look When Marc Quinn Turned Kate Moss into a Monument

1 What is Exclusive First Look When Marc Quinn Turned Kate Moss into a Monument about
Its a feature about Marc Quinns sculpture Sphinx a lifesized golden statue of supermodel Kate Moss posed like a yoga contortion

2 Who is Marc Quinn
A British contemporary artist known for work based on the human body including a famous sculpture of his own head made from his frozen blood

3 Who is Kate Moss
A British supermodel and one of the most famous fashion figures in the world since the 1990s

4 What is the sculpture called
Sphinx made in 2006

5 Why is it called Sphinx
Because Moss is posed with her knees pulled up arms wrapped around her legs and feet tucked behind her head a pose that looks like a riddle like the mythical Sphinx

6 What is the sculpture made of
Painted bronze covered in 18carat gold Its lifesized and extremely detailed

7 Where was it first shown
It was unveiled at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York in 2006

8 Why did it get so much attention
Because it turned a fashion model into a golden almost religiouslooking icon and the yogalike pose was shocking and impressive

9 What does the sculpture mean
It explores fame beauty the human body and how society turns celebrities into modernday monuments or idols

10 Why did Marc Quinn choose Kate Moss
He saw her as a cultural icon someone whose image is everywhere and who represents modern beauty and celebrity

11 Did Kate Moss pose for it
Yes she posed for the artist and the sculpture was made from those sessions

12 How long did it take to make
It took several months to sculpt cast and finish

13 How much did it cost
The sculpture was reportedly sold for around 15 million at the time

14 Where is it now
Its in a private collection It has also appeared in museum exhibitions including at the British Museum

15 Is it a real person or just a statue
Its a statue