Ever since humans first started representing reality, we have been manipulating human form. What is it about our psyche which causes us to morph these versions of ourselves? We have been shattered, stretched, exaggerated and squashed. Even our ideas about beauty, from ringed necks to boob jobs, are all about this manipulation of the body. I suppose by distorting aspects of ourselves, we learn to know ourselves. The absolute potential and variation in every human figure is simply astounding.
I went to a Ron Mueck exhibition a while ago. He creates hyper real human sculptures. The only way to tell them apart from real life is their scale, as they are always larger or smaller than living humans. This creates an unsettling feeling when observing them, especially the smaller ones; I felt totally invasive when leering my face up close to them, trying to look at the detail of their pores and veins, and half expected them to snap at me and tell me to fuck away. After leaving the gallery every human I passed looked like a sculpture, and the streets turned into a sea of squishy noses and ears, a plastic fleshy mass exhibition of human form. It sure made for great people watching.
Ron Mueck
Alexander McQueen bodysuit.
Kostas Varotsas
Lolo Ferarri
Mirrorman
Antony Gormley
Lucian Freud
No comments:
Post a Comment