TATLIN NEWS #52

«Во втором или третьем классе я обмотал карандаш липкой лен- той. Учитель сказал мне тогда что-то вроде «Зачем ты тратишь ленту впустую?», и я оставил это занятие приблизительно лет на 20».| «In second or third grade that I cast a pencil in class. The teacher told me something like “don’t waste tape” and I kind of left it at that until 20 or so years later».

вал английский язык в Рио-де-Жанейро и у меня было много свободного времени между уроками, которое нечем было занять. Однаж- ды я сделал большой мяч из фольги, чтобы хоть чем-то заняться, пока я валялся на дива- не. Результат мне понравился, и я решил сде- лать второй мяч из скотча, но ленты оказалось

недостаточно. И тогда я вспомнил, как ребен- ком обматывал свою голову скотчем. И я об- мотал шар из фольги лентой. Результат чрез- вычайно меня удивил. Я тут же решил сделать слепок с кофейника. Пару месяцев спустя у меня дома было уже несколько сотен мотков скотча, и я сделал слепки со всего, что есть в

«Babies are wonderful, artist says. But also fragile, and in- stalling the kids outdoors to fend for themselves like a fresh crop of cicadas hits an unsettling nerve with some people. But I think the Storker Project makes a good analogy to the propaga- tion of life by showing its beauty and vulnerability. Sometimes I install them in playful positions, while other times they’re scavenging or hanging on for life. One of my favorite experi- ences was an installation I did in Franklin Park in Washington. The place is sort of a camping ground for the homeless. I was installing some tape babies in a tree and an older homeless guy came up, acting pretty hostile towards me. It was about me being in their space at first, but once he saw the babies, that bothered him even more. I asked him if he’d rather I leave, but he wanted to have a confrontation and so I kept working, answering his questions, trying to keep him on simmer until I could finish and get out. When he found out I didn’t have any kids of my own he concluded I was doing this because I was ex- pressing a need to have a wife and family. I agreed that could be true. He started giving me life advice and said, “The greatest meal a man can have is the meal made by his wife and mother cooking in the same home”. In the end I got him to focus on the art instead of me by offering the installation up for him to critique. He told me he didn’t like the way I’d put them up–that the babies were disconnected, each on their own. He thought it would be better if they were facing each other, like brothers helping each other. I repositioned them like he wanted. He was really happy I did it for him and got close to tears talking about the power of brotherhood. We ended up leaving on good terms, handshakes, and even a hug. I offered him a couple bucks but he refused, and leaving, he said, “Let no man scare you from what you love,” and he pointed to the babies». Making use of aesthetics and technology of casting moulds has a long tradition in contemporary art. For example, George Segal, a classicist of Pop Art, has been making startling plaster bandage casts from living people for several decades, placing figures into their natural surroundings (at the bar counter, on a street bench, in a bus or on a metal bed). People who were stopped, trussed up and fixed in his works are “put to death alive”. Predominant subjects of his sculptures are body as a prison, death, grim fate and despair. They remind of casts of cavities people left in the ashes of Pompeii or death masks. Mark Jenkins’ ephemeral casts made of packing tape point out the opposite; like a butterfly emerging from cocoon, they imprint coverings and spheres, where body acquires soul. He sees body as a shell for the immaterial and not prone to decay, and the soul as energy emanation and magnetism. In the sculp- tor’s works body undergoes the process of establishment in its genuine essence (one cannot avoid being pompous when talk- ing about it) – a vessel for a soul. Another aspect of the artist’s works is his acute social criti- cism. His mannequins dressed in used clothes are on the border between satire and the theatre of the absurd. Jenkins raises a question about identity and its being replaced by social roles and ranks. His evil pranks look quite realistic. However, while Duane Hanson, a classicist of Pop Art, offers us absurdism of the literal and realistic recreation of empty characters of the consumption world, which he creates with the help of dummies, Jenkins’ char- acters are literally empty, and it is a keen reminder of the actual loss of identity as an existing problem. Denying the values of the consumption world and even protesting against it does not guar- antee that one’s individuality will acquire integrity. Installations in public spaces work as catalysers of urban cul- ture. Everything around us turns into art. The surrounding and the context are main elements of Jenkins’ work; his ephemeral

46    ТАТLIN news 4|52|75  2009