Curatorial Project

Curatorial statement

The theme for this exhibition is obesity. There seams to be such a concern in the media today about the issue of obesity in America today, yet there is also a growing problem with eating disorders. People are getting bigger and bigger being dragged in by the consumers market, and soaking it all up. Unfortunately they appear to be soaking it all up in their stomachs, thighs, torso, neck and even arms. They become so big that all they can do is eat up what is fed to them on TV. However, our models become inversely smaller and smaller. Even peoples feet; one of few noticeable body parts that doesn’t change much in size based on weight, has been targeted through new fancy sneakers to change your body. This exebition does not offer the traditional, ‘be who you are on the inside, weight doesn’t matter’ theme; instead I am embracing obesity as an important subject of art; one that, judging by trends, will only increase with America’s waste line.

The first piece done by Thomas Mangold is entitled Fat Giraffe. An overweight bulging giraffe in the center of the frame assaults what was originally a traditional safari photo of a giraffe. The artist was focusing on the quality of enlarging things by increasing their weight as opposed to increasing size to show detail.

Marc Sijan is an incredibly realistic sculptor, known for his incredible reproductions of life size people. People have reportedly walked up to his figures and attempted to have conversations with them. This character in particular is an older looking man with a large stomach and mid section, a balding head, and cellulite legs. He looks like he could be the copy of any regular guy walking down the street. In this way he glorifies this fat figure by calling it art.

In contrast to Sijan’s life size figures, Rom Mueck’s piece is larger than life. Entitled, Big Man, his sculpture is about 8 ft tall as the figure sits slouched over himself on the ground. This enormous scale magnifies every little thing about the Big Man, begging viewers to come closer. Mueck is also a hyperrealist artist so every flaw and blemish really shows on this figure. The bald obese naked man pouting in the corner is so pure and true to humanity in its strangeness.

Jerome Paul Witkin painted a burly man he calls Jeff Davis. His large protruding stomach from his jacket and the roundness of his figure are the first thing a viewer’s eye is drawn to. He is a common man, with no glorified scale or context, except for that of the exaggerated detail. Jeff Davies appears to have a spotlight shown on him and another illuminating him from behind. The highlights and the fact that he is lit from below add to his apparent size and toughness. None of this would have any effect if he were a thin man. The painting would not be controlled by his mass, but rather the volume of his jacket on a small man. No matter how rough the man looks, he is still a beautiful painting.

If we are discounting the beauty of the smooth thin elegance of modern models and turning out focus to the growing obese, why should we overlook the most classically elegant object of all; the sports car. Erwin Wurm has not. He made a series of Fat Cars, bulging, borderline disgusting, flesh tone cars that look like the artist injected one ton of lard in under the paint, giving the car cellulite. His original critique was to American consumerism, but you can’t ignore the destruction of something as beautiful as a Porsche and not be in awe somehow.

Of Corse if we are going so far as to have our cars and giraffes be overweight, why not the creatures of our imagination? Patricia Piccinini depicts a small child sleeping with a corpulent fleshy creature somewhere between a human and an armadillo. The creature’s skin is grotesque and it has small creatures being born from large bulging pores in its back, however, it is almost impossible not to find the creature cute as it holds the small child under its arm as they sleep. Its chubbiness becomes endearing and cute.

The exebition is designed to show the appeal of the obese art we find in the contemporary US