David Altmejd @ White Cube
David Altmejd’s work is a fantastical and intoxicating mix of science fiction and gothic romanticism. Altmejd’s conceptually driven portrait and bust sculptures display hybrid human and animal characters. The sculpted busts and heads embody a regenerative cycle of decay, growth, and division.
Combining resin, plaster, and foam with glass eyes, crystals, and hair encompasses the stunning lifelike aesthetics and captivating humanism expressed in the sculptural series. Thus, what Altmejd has skillfully presented is an immediate jarring sensation in the artist’s juxtaposition of uncanny realistic human features with expressive gestures.
Installation view of David Altmejd, White Cube Mason's Yard. Credit: White Cube.
Throughout the exhibition, the hare is easily the most recurring character. Within his most recent practice, the artist conjures the Jungian archetype of the trickster through renditions of the hare. The trickster is a shapeshifter, a prankster who embodies humanity's irrational and erratic side. Here, the trickster’s shapeshifting powers are highlighted in the various forms the hare assumes, which range from cartoon-like to perplexingly human. The hare’s signature features, such as the ears, are comically large and erect or limp, signalling distinctive emotions.
Additionally, the features within these enigmatic sculptures subsume the artist’s alter-ego. Altmejd states that the sculptures ought to be seen as character manifestations relating to different aspects of his own personality. Thus, the exhibition should be perceived as a multi-faceted psychic self-portrait of the artist.
A series of subtle interventions throughout the space offer networks of unseen activity. This further permeates the Jungian archetype of the collective, shared ancestral memories that are not obvious to the eye but shape our experiences, knowledge and perceptions. Altmejd is incredibly skilful in rendering realistic features that the sculptures have a hallucinatory quality that is vivid and unexpected.
The Vector, 2022. Expanding foam, epoxy, acrylic paint, resin, glass eyes, coloured pencil, pencil, fibreglass, glass rhinestone and wood, 397 × 182 × 182 cm. Photo: Kendra Lee.
Located at the exhibition’s entrance is The Vector (2022), the largest and only full-bodied sculpture, a human-hare hybrid with long, giant ears. Erect and dominating, the tops of the enormous ears reach the ceiling and completely envelop the space. Its size and dynamic materiality invite us to walk around it to take in the incredible details.
Seated in a yogic position - its legs folded, arms resting, and back slightly bent - the figure is solemn, contemplative. Disrupting this is a burrow that makes it appear as if the figure has dug into the podium, surely a reminder of the humanist-hare’s animalistic tendencies. Its imposing presence in both the size of the ears and decomposing essence in clay material plays with ideas of decay in juxtaposition with regeneration and liveliness.
Left: Dusk, 2022. Expanding foam, epoxy, acrylic paint, latex paint, quartz, coloured pencil, pencil, steel and wood, 61 × 43.2 × 25.4 cm. Photo: Kendra Lee.
Right: The Man and the Whale, 2022. Expanding foam, epoxy, glass eyes, acrylic paint, coloured pencil, steel, concrete and wood, 174.6 × 60 × 57.3 cm. Photo: Kendra Lee
On the lower level, the remaining sculptures are displayed on white podiums that provide a clean backdrop to set the stage for the whimsical chaos of Altmejd's work. The arrangement gives the impression of a classical sculpture courtyard as the busts and heads are displayed on rowed plinths. Some individual sculptures are positioned in corners and above eye level. Evident in the mirrored layout, the organisation of the works of art feeds into the theme of regenerative cycles.
These fantastical works feature sculptures that might have a human mouth on its forehead, sprout another head, be inverted, or have its face divided into three parts. In others, details of their face and body have been dug out and reveal cavities of crystals akin to an amalgamation of animals and minerals. Each work has a different contortion.
However, each figure incorporates the use of glass eyes. This adds a sense of veracity and fantastical intrigue. In addition, this prominently emphasizes the artist’s alter egos in various forms, juxtaposing the decay of material deterioration in conversation with playful, subversive, disruptive forces in humanity and our culture.
9³, 2022. Resin, expanding foam, epoxy, acrylic paint, quartz, glass eyes, coloured pencils, glass rhinestones, Sharpie, pencil, wood, steel, concrete and fibreglass, 96 × 57 × 57 cm. Photo: Kendra Lee
White Cube’s exhibition of Altmejd takes the viewer on a personal and whimsical journey of the Trickster, the hare, as a stimulus for transformation, further freeing the artist's imagination. Consequently, the viewer is guided through a fantastic array of figures, which materialise as fragmentary and almost outer-worldly. For me, this exhibition was an exclusive insight into the peculiar work of Altmejd. Overlapping philosophical themes veiled in science fiction and post-apocalyptic aesthetics, the exhibition presents the climactic experience of science and magic.
David Altmejd is on view at White Cube Mason’s Yard until January 21, 2023.
Bibliography:
White Cube. “David Altmejd.” Accessed January 15, 2023.
Kendra Lee
Reviews Co-Editor, MADE IN BED
