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'Trophy Head (Flesh2HeadCombo)', 2006
Mixed Media
'Trophy Head (Golden2Headed6Ocular4AuditoryUniHorns)', 2007
Mixed Media
For many of us today, avocado, nut brown and harvest gold shag rugs, terrarium lamps and flocked wallpaper have come to signify the 1970s. Years from now, future generations will recognize a room with a hunter's trophy and antlers as a hipster signature of the early 2000's. What does this really say about our own era?
Artist Joshua Levine offers one possible answer. His mixed media sculptures take an ironic swipe at urbanites who decorate their walls with replicas of dead animals, or the parts of the actual animals themselves, and also create compelling surreal works to replace the deceased deer on sophisticates' walls.
As verified by a stamp-like copyright tattoo on the back of his neck, Levine was born in 1972. His on-line profile fleshes out the information imprinted on his flesh, adding that he was born in Boston and now lives in Hollywood, and showing his hair dyed in a leopard-print pattern. As a Generation X city-kid, Levine's personal aesthetic and basic bio seem consistent at first with other artists who fetishize nature from the safety of urban jungles.
But Levine's work has a harsher bite. His hunters' trophies could be genuine prizes because they are such extraordinarily lifelike mutant variations on nature's common wonders. The two-headed deer elegantly arching their strong necks, the day-glo buck and conjoined ducks are all examples of Levine's fascination with man's advancing control over nature and his belief in "better living through science." Yet the sculptures are also chilling visions of how curious and beautiful actual animal remains might seem after animals themselves are made obsolete by scientific mismanagement that we at first think is "progress."
To see more of Joshua Levine's work registered on Saatchi Online click here.
Ana Finel Honigman |
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ANA FINEL HONIGMAN is a Berlin-based critic and curator. She writes on contemporary art and fashion for publications including Artforum.com, Sleek, V, TANK, Art in America, Artnet.com, Art Journal, Whitewall, The National, Dazed & Confused and British Vogue. As a Senior Correspondent for the Saatchi Gallery's online magazine, Ana contributes exhibition reviews from Berlin, New York and elsewhere, as well as an interview series. To contact her, email anahonigman@hotmail.com
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| Published on 25-05-2009 |
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