Lexington, Kentucky
University of Kentucky Art Museum
Christina A. West’s “Staring at the Son” (on view through July 27, 2024) features about a dozen new works related to her ”Mere Mortals” series that respond to selected pieces from the University of Kentucky Art Museum’s permanent collection. West’s partial body casts and sculptural wooden “stages” displaying digital works, prints, and photographs all address the male form, as do the seven accompanying collection pieces (three photographs, two prints, and two small sculptures). It is a concentrated, but quietly diverse, look at the male form, conveying, as West says, “vulnerability with strength and beauty with awkwardness.”
Six provisional-looking wooden structures (some created by West in advance, others built on site) act as sculptures in themselves and compose the space. In, on, and around these works, West has positioned four plaster life casts, two silicone life casts, three videos, a photograph, and an animation. Some of the partial-body white plaster casts sit on the floor, while the pale silicone casts drape loosely from supports. The works are not individually titled, and the show moves interestingly from one to the next, building a stockpile of references (classical figure sculpture, Christian art, photos of regular dudes) and potential meanings (fleeting beauty, salvation, fatherhood). Though this isn’t an easy show to immediately grasp hold of (at least for this viewer), the wood and exposed-screw structures are immediately striking. The directness of their construction presents a pleasing counterpoint to the digital works, two-dimensional imagery, and emotionally intense religious art.
One of the first works encountered is West’s loosely rolled-up photograph of a man, naked and depicted from the knees up, gently holding a naked baby to his chest. The rolled form creates a 24-inch-tall cylinder, which sits on a wall-mounted plywood shelf with a single thin diagonal support leg. This creates a simple, yet decidedly sculptural way of presenting the image.
On top of and draping down the side of a vitrine housing a small 18th-century carved wooden Pietà, West has placed a silicone cast of a man’s right arm, its limpness mimicking the lifeless body of Christ. Taped to the pedestal, and perhaps suggesting the cycle of life, is a Polaroid of an Andy Warhol Polaroid depicting a skeptical-looking, dark-haired young man with his arms crossed across his chest.
The show’s largest work, positioned in the middle of the gallery and built from plywood and two-by-fours, echoes the proportions and shape of the Pietà’s integral base. Angled boards, in the role of Mary, support a draped silicone cast of a man’s crossed feet, while a large monitor displays a close-cropped video of a man’s chest. At first, it looks like a still, but there are some reassuring movements as the figure breathes.
West also responds to a carved head of the crucified Christ (c. 1600) whose open mouth reveals perfectly articulated teeth. Her animation based on this sculptural fragment is housed in a 12-inch-tall, handbuilt box installed on a nearby wall. Rather than expressing agony, West’s Christ blinks awkwardly, opens and closes his mouth, blinks again, turns slightly back and forth, and then winks as if we know the joke. On another pedestal, a 3D-printed version of the sculpture is included in a memento mori of sorts, along with a Warhol Polaroid of a young shirtless blonde guy and a set of false teeth.
On a low wall that wouldn’t typically be used to display art, West created another lumber construction, this one holding Lucian Freud’s Man Resting, an etching focused on the upper back and head of a prone man, facing the side and eyes closed. In front of this, on a folded packing blanket, lies West’s life-size plaster cast of a muscled male torso, with the right arm holding the left forearm. This partial figure seems to finish Freud’s depiction, adding details of a young body.
Far from glamorized or sexualized, neither aggrandizing nor mocking, these images and sculptures successfully navigate a minefield of issues relating to masculinity and nude bodies presented for display, while still keeping the viewer’s attention on just how these men have been depicted and what they might communicate. West’s works don’t answer many questions; instead, they keep us looking and thinking.
