The Weekly Volcano, July 6, 2014
This must be seen.
New York
artist Benjamin Enterner’s installation “Ego Sum” from the Contemporary Arts
Center in Las Vegas has now traveled to Olympia and can be seen at the gallery
at South Puget Sound Community College. This new version of the show is called “Mining
the Ego,” and like his installation in Las Vegas, it fills the gallery with
monstrous figures drawn with black markers on blow-up vinyl sculptures that
overwhelm the gallery space.
Entner draws himself in less-than-idealized and
unflattering poses similar to those of
classical Greco-Roman and Renaissance sculpture, creating an “awkward dialogue
between his contemporary parodies and the historical works … that questions and
challenges perspectives of beauty, proportion, and the idealized man.”
There is a kitsch-pop element to these soft
sculptures, but also something deadly serious; they are like the love child of sculptures
by Jeff Koons and etchings by Albrecht
Dürer. The centerpiece of the show is a self-portrait with the subject lying on
his side. His head is near the entrance to the gallery and his feet almost
touch the back wall, and the girth of the figure reaches almost floor to
ceiling. The drawing is semi-realistic with dense crosshatch shading. All of
his figures are distorted in a funhouse mirror sort of way, not so much because
of the way they are drawn but because the blowup vinyl forms they are drawn upon
bend and twist in odd ways. Bodies twist and turn, and arms and legs taper off
and swell up. Hands and feet tend to be larger than is realistic, and it is
hard to tell if they were actually drawn that way or not. The viewer has to
walk around this figure, and from no single point of view can it be seen
head-to-toe. Parts of the figure go over the hill of itself and vanish from
sight.
From the front of the large
centerpiece figure, called “Colossus,” we see Entner’s face, bearded and with glasses, facing the viewer. When the
viewer walks around to see him from the backside, his face is still facing the
viewer — turned to look over one shoulder in a realistic way but
appearing at first glance like Linda Blair’s spinning head in “he Exorcist.”
Near the entrance is a larger-than-life bust of
Entner on a Roman style pedestal. Near it is another full figure, about life
size, standing by a ladder and juggling a smaller version of himself. There’s
another smaller one that is like one of those kids’ punching bags that you hit
and it falls down and pops back up. And then there’s one with Entner in an
identical pose as Michelangelo’s “David.” But he is not as beautiful as David.
He has an average body covered with prickly black hair.
This is a fascinating show that absolutely must be
seen. Even people who care nothing for art will be blown away by it, and people
who know something of art history will be intrigued by his inventiveness, skill
and art-historical references.
South Puget Sound Community College, Kenneth J Minnaert Center for the
Arts Gallery, Monday-Friday, noon-4 p.m. and by appointment, through Aug. 22, 2011
Mottman Rd. SW. Olympia, 360.596.5527.]
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