Bull and Wounded Horse Exhibition
Bull and Wounded Horse is essentially two things:
- An exhibition of photographs, objects, clayboard etchings and screen prints.
- A performance piece based on these objects
The paradoxes of contemporary religious belief are explored in new work by Elliott Earls, Cranbrook Academy of Art's Designer-in-Residence and Head of the Department of Graphic Design since 2001. In this series of drawings, paintings and photographs, Earls reinterprets biblical symbols of sacrifice, repentance and martyrdom within a contemporary cultural context. While electronic and digital techniques are prominent in Earls work, his use of traditional media such as egg tempera and scratchboard underscores his belief in the importance of drawing and craft in his aesthetic investigation. The works included in Bull and Wounded Horse will form the foundation for a new performance piece addressing the role of faith in a post 9/11 world.
– Joe Houston
Bronze Busts
Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man (Dedicated to Friedrich Nietzsche) 2005, Bronze. |
Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man with Pig Nose 2005, Bronze. |
Elliott's thoughts on Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
On the most basic level I see these two busts dealing with a few very direct issues. Initially there was a structural impulse that gave rise to the work, and there was a narrative subtext that was the result (or residue) of the process. As Designer-in-Residence at Cranbrook Academy of Art, I've been exposed to the sublime beauty of Cranbrook's grounds everyday for the last six years. Walking from my residence, through Cranbrook's gardens and into Saarinen's studios has had a pronounced affect on me as an artist and a designer. The experience of Sararinen's architecture sustains a kind of nearly inexhaustible contemplation. And while I realize this may sound dramatic, it's true.
The structural case
A critical component of Saarinen's plan for the grounds included the incorporation and integration of the figurative sculpture of Carl Milles. On my many walks through the grounds, my mind would often drift back to a very pronounced paradox at play at the Academy. Given that the Academy deals very directly with a contemporary art discourse, I found myself struggling with a kind of dialectical relationship between the architectural (and sculptural) setting and the discourse at the academy. With it's roots in a utopian American Arts and Crafts movement, the Cranbrook grounds seem a silent partner in the education of graduate students. And yet clearly, mythologically invested / figurative / decorative bronze sculpture is considered a kind of lesser art form, more suited to contemplation on a program like The Antiques Road Show than within the intellectual structure of the academy.
The schism within modern sculptural practice between, high modern reductivist forms and lesser figurative/ "decorative" work continues to play itself out in the contemporary discourse. And while I realize that we live in a post-modern age where Stephen King resides simultaneously with James Joyce, there is still a kind of pronounced bias. I'm subject to it and an active participant in it. I feel a palpable sense of revulsion when confronted in nearly every American urban landscape with the legions of ridiculous bronze sculptures depicting; Running Businessman with Brief Case, Little Girl and Old Man on Park Bench, or Old Salty-Dog Eating Hamburger. And yet my penchant for lowbrow, disused, abject and under appreciated forms coupled with the experience of Milles' work within Sarrinen's plan, drove me to strive for a kind of synthesis. So on the simplest level the impulse that gave rise to these pieces was an attempt to actively investigate and engage these issues, and let the oppositional forces of the dialectic drive the synthesis.
Over the course of the past fifteen years, a leitmotif within my work has been the image of the severed head of the cyclops. As an example the image below is a large screen print on wood (example 1). I've come to understand the recurrence of this image within my work as kind of Freudian articulation of the ego. The monocular head divorced from it's primitive sexualized needs struggles to pacify it's carnal nature. This image translated into a bronze bust to be situated within Sarrinen's architecture seemed an appropriate place to start. To be clear, my goal was to make a bust and place it on top of the column in the Design Courtyard (see example 2) .
| Example 1. Super Anti-Zero 1995, Screen print on wood 48"x48" |
Click here to see selections from the Mad King body of work |
The case for post-facto rationalization
What I've attempted to do in the previous four paragraphs is to provide a window into the initial thoughts that gave rise to the process of creating the busts. I've tried to outline my initial "idea," the impulse from which the busts took shape. However, as tired and cliche as this may sound, the process of realizing a work is a process of discovery. It's not simply the direct translation of an "idea" into materials. When realizing a piece, the artist enters into a dialog with materials, ideas and context. Through this process the object becomes it's own thing. Over the course of the six months it took me to sculpt the forms, a slightly different interpretation of the work slowly began to emerge as the forms began to come into focus. The image, context, materials and expression on the face of the bust lead me to begin to understand the work as a reflection on my development as a young man. In some substantive ways I feel as if the piece is the self-portrait of a man emerging from crisis after the death of his father. Does this interpretation nullify the preceding impulse? No, it shades and complexifies my understanding of the piece.
It's my opinion that the work actually attempts to triangulate a conceptual and formal space between three poles; Adolf Loos' conception of decoration as crime, Nietzsche's concept of the transgressive nature of spiritual development, and the my own existential crisis at the age of twenty which was precipitated by the loss of my father. By working with site specific figurative bronze work - influenced by the work of Carl Milles and Eliel Saarinen - I also feel as if I'm attempting to re-examine the idea of "decoration as crime" within the modern sculptural tradition. I see a parallel between this "criminal" form, and the trajectory of spiritual development articulated in Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche. And more importantly with hindsight, It was Nietzsche's "wheel rolling out of it's own center" that was the cathartic principle propelling me out of the existential crisis that was the loss of my father. The expression on the cyclops below is me, finally living from an intrinsic dynamic, emerging with renewed power from the darkest period of my life.
| Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man (Dedicated to Freidrich Nietzsche) 2005 Edition |
Example 2. The view of the design courtyard from Elliott Earls studio. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was designed to reside on the column. |
Linguistic armatures and bullshit artists
All of this begs a simple question. Do I actually believe that these concepts, issues or themes are present(accessible) to the viewer? I think it's irrelevant. The work should stand apart from the any linguistic armature that props it up. Further, my interpretation of the work even as it's creator, is only one of many possible interpretations. If I'm comfortable with the work aside from rationalizations than why write about the work? Because I'm also confident that the artist invests the work with a "life" through the process of making the work. These are some of the thoughts that led to the birth of the piece. I write about it, for very self serving reasons. It helps me to clarify, and hopefully deepen my understanding of the creative process.
Six of thirty studies for Portrait
This form has continued to develop in The Saranay Motel
Click on the image above to see how this form is developing within The Saranay Motel