Can a bat made from twist-ties and melted plastic bags teach us a lesson about politics?
Just after the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq, we have been forced, once again, to consider how we got here. Resolutions were broken and connections were drawn, and yet in retrospect it seems that no one asked the right questions. No one looked closely enough. The conceptual artist, Tim Hawkinson, whose art is now on display at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, offers us a simple, and valuable, lesson. Though his inventive and technologically impressive work touches on many themes, from corporeality, to temporality, and even to humor, in his current exhibition, Zoopsia, one lesson becomes staggeringly clear--we must, if nothing else, look closely.
Tim Hawkinson, Octopus, 2006, Photographic collage mounted on foam,
Courtesy of the Artist, Los Angeles, California © 2007 Tim Hawkinson
Upon entering the gallery, a cursory glance at Hawkinson's objects reveals them to be straightforward enough. A curved skeleton floats as if plucked from a natural history museum, and a giant pink octopus is stuck to the wall. But move closer to the works, move around them and look, and the impressiveness of Hawkinson's thoughtfulness begins to take hold. In his massive Octopus, exploding on the wall on the right, the artist begins an exploration of perception, engaging us in a play between what we think we see and what is actually there. Indeed, the suction cups of the familiar eight-armed creature are carefully arranged photographic cutouts of the artist's own lips and mouth. The pink and red puckers, soft and wet, cleverly lend the animal the squishy quality with which we associate it, while adding a layer of sensuality that is both appropriate for the animal and yet a little too human. Hawkinson's physical imprint may be on display here, as is so often in his work (he has used his own fingernails and hair before). But a primary effect of the works in Zoopsia, which was commissioned especially for the Getty, is a deep interest in the significance of looking. It is as though something that we think is a "known known" is something altogether different.
His work, however, is both far more complicated (and yet remarkably more coherent) than a Rumsfeld one-liner. For traditionalists who may dismiss the work of a quirky conceptual artist, and wonder, frankly, what his wacky animals are doing at the Getty, they would surely benefit from a closer consideration. For Hawkinson not only engages with ways of seeing, but also with the space of the art museum and the role of the object in it. Along the left wall of the exhibit, Leviathon appears to be a dinosaur's skeleton supported by a simple steel frame. Yet the skull is made up of a figure bent over himself. The figure's back and backside are the outlines of nose, eyes and ear, and the figure's lower legs are the skull's bottom jaw. And the long, curving back of the would-be animal is made up of tiny people pulling rounded oars in place of vertebrae and ribs.
Tim Hawkinson, Bat, 2007, Plastic bag material and twist-ties, Courtesy of the Artist, Los Angeles, California © 2007 Tim Hawkinson
And hanging from the ceiling in front of the opposite wall, eerily lit from below, is a playful black bat. But instead of a taxidermied animal, the fur and hair of this blind beast is made of plastic bags from Radio Shack, heated to shrivel in all the right places. Household twist-ties add structure to the body and serve as webbing in the bat's wings, which spread ominously above the viewer. His pointy little feet complete the illusion, and remnants of the red Radio Shack logo make up the cavity of the bat's mouth and ears. The absolute lifelikeness of the bat attests to Hawkinson's technical facility. And yet through the visual plays in both Leviathon and Bat, Hawkinson also interrogates the space of the museum and what belongs in it. At first glance both of these works seem like objects that should be on display. Upon closer inspection they prove to be something altogether different. Indeed, their makeup completely undermines their own position in that privileged space, and we are thus obliged to ask the more difficult question of what belongs in the space of a museum. Looking more closely inevitably leads to a more careful meditation on the work. And it is a practice that is no less powerful beyond the realm of art.
Tim Hawkinson, Dragon, 2007, Ink, paper and mixed media, Courtesy of the Artist, Los Angeles, California © 2007 Tim Hawkinson
Suspended from a ribbon and a wooden rod at the far end of the gallery looms Hawkinson's largest work in the room, Dragon. This piece not only raises questions about perception or the space of the museum, but more directly engages in a dialogue with the categorization of art. A huge ink drawing on industrial brown paper, the style and material of the work immediately recalls Chinese calligraphy and scroll illustration. It is also reminiscent of the Western fascination with mythical beasts--a show of which will open at the museum on May 1 and will surely generate an even deeper dialogue between Hawkinson's work and the more traditional objects at the museum. In this impressive drawing, the dragon's soaring figure traverses back and forth across the giant paper as though dancing like its paper counterparts in Chinese parades, and yet its undulating body and awkwardly placed legs are made of landscape and wood rather than flesh and bone. Because of its subject, style and medium, Dragon recalls most closely the objects traditionally located in an art museum and demands a discussion of the definition of art itself. How, exactly, is Hawkinson's drawing of a dragon different from one of similar style and technique in so many museums across the globe? Why can't Hawkinson's work be considered in the canon of art history, or why should it?
Zoopsia, along with his Überorgan, which plays hourly in the main entrance to the museum, displays Hawkinson's incredible MacGyver-esque technological skill as well as his sense of humor and imagination. For traditionalists his work may be seen as too conceptual, even unartistic--work that is both straightforward and technically unsuited for a place in an art museum. Yet at the heart of Zoopsia lies an intelligent engagement with these very issues, as well as an interest in verisimilitude in art that his been explored since the days of Aristotle. Hawkinson's visual games demand that we take our time, look closely, and cogitate--a lesson that is useful in all manner of things, not just art. Because Hawkinson's works in Zoopsia are not easily summed-up, easily categorized, or easily judged, it may take some time to understand them. As was so eloquently stated four years ago, it could take six days, maybe even six weeks. I doubt six months.
-Leah Lehmbeck