Chicago – Tony Tasset is the master of making things that are so bad that they are good.
In the course of the artist’s long career, this contains a 30-foot long replica of its own eyeball, a cross assembled from cola-can diets, bronze Magnolia trees forever in bloom, dirty snowmen who never melt, abstract expressionist cloth paints with spices and even a permanent metal park. These sculptures always reach a high degree of realism – those are not real soft drinks. In the beginning they are usually funny, but not long. They are often very accessible, but for the wrong reasons, which I allow my own snobism. Most people understand all the levels of criticism built into one 12-foot Long Fawn FawnOr do they just want to make a selfie with an overgrown lawn ornament? What I suspect that the answer to that question makes me very uncomfortable. Moreover, I really enjoyed seeing that deer when it spent a few seasons with grazing on the Chicago riverwalk.
In Blow, wind and crack your cheeks!“ A show of recent paintings, sculpture and video at Corbett vs. Dempsey, Tasset did it again. The most important event is his series of “disturbing paintings”, rectangular cloths that are supplied in small, medium and large sizes, each in a different rich tint, with areas that are deliberately fragmented, pierced or cut or cut. Brancard bars peek through like bare skin in a few places. Worn places reveal the structure of the canvas tissue.
I wanted to hate these artworks, then I wanted to poke my finger through their holes, and in the end they became a perfect aesthetics of the contemporary moment. A few torn dolce and gabbana jeans costs $ 1,295 and democracy, let alone my own common sense, depends on a thread. So much of great importance is currently frayed in the world. Tasset, once aimed at America, even makes the national bird remakes for this horror show: a sickly, squawkking and completely horrible “Eagle” (2025), which is not built by hand from bits of air -dry clay but certainly looks. That grotesque Raptor, soon to be cast in aluminum (to be seen a resin model), makes a candidate for a monument as well as the old -fashioned wooden cart that is broken and lay on its side in the middle of the gallery. “Brick Barrow” (2025) testifies to the miserable state of human labor, but not, ironically, for the formidable sweat and the talent that concerned the spot-on patinated bronze replica of a brick wheelbarrow, about 15% larger than life-size, what it actually is.
Blow, wind and crack your cheeks! Is named after a line spoken by King Lear in the Shakespeare -theater. The sentence begins a monologue, of which Tasset delivers a five -minute video, which ends with the line: “I am a man who sinning more than sinning.” Directed by Jennifer Reeder, “My Lear” (2025), the artist shows completely costumed as a crazy old king who is racing and enthusiastic in his studio, overburdened with previous artworks, probably unsold. Direct the obvious parallels with kingdoms, daughters and hangers-on.
Tasset sometimes does this – makes wild personal work about himself or his family. The sincerity can be amazing. In the late nineties he dressed as Neil Young and Robert Smithson for a few staged photos, who confess style and aspiration. “My Lear” feels of a piece, although decades more brave and crazier.
Tony Tasset: Blow, Winds and Crack Your Cheeks! continues in Corbett vs. Dempsey (2156 West Fulton Street, Chicago, Illinois) up to and including 7 June. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
