{"id":15347,"date":"2013-01-07T16:10:20","date_gmt":"2013-01-07T22:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=15347"},"modified":"2021-01-30T14:39:29","modified_gmt":"2021-01-30T20:39:29","slug":"heroes-and-monsters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/heroes-and-monsters\/","title":{"rendered":"Supermen and Monsters Invade BYU’s MOA"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The first thing you notice when driving up to Brigham Young University\u2019s Museum of Art is the long neck of the Loch Ness Monster emerging from within the flower bed. In fact, seeing such an apparition made me laugh, out loud, with both delight and excitement, giddy as I was to see curator Jeff Lambson\u2019s much anticipated\u00a0We Could be Heroes: The Mythology of Monsters and Heroes in Contemporary Art<\/em>, which runs through April 6th. Giddy because BYU consistently brings a professional caliber to their exhibitions in ways that very few institutions in Utah are able to do.\u00a0We Could Be Heroes<\/em>\u00a0is no exception. In the breadth, research and excellent educational resources, it rivals exhibits at some of our nation\u2019s finest institutions.<\/p>\n

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Michael Scoggins, “Tie Fighter,”
Graphite, crayon, prismacolor on paper, 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

The title boldly declares: We Could Be Heroes. But what is a hero and what are the monsters they face? And, perhaps more importantly, why is this seemingly playful and childish topic relevant beyond comic books and action figures? Well, in fact, our society, and many others before it, has a long obsession with heroic myths: think of the Greek Hercules, the Sumerian Gilgamesh, England\u2019s King Arthur, and George Lucas\u2019s Luke Skywalker, to name a few.<\/p>\n

Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell both believed that every culture, in every place and time, will compulsively rehash certain myths and symbols. Among those continually reprised throughout the ages is the \u2018hero’s journey. Like Jung and Campbell, Ben Saunders, professor of literature at Oregon State, explores the mythology of heroes. His words, in fact, begin the exhibition: \u201cthe dream of the superhero is not just a dream of flying, not just a dream about men and women who wield the power of the gods. It\u2019s also a dream about men and women who never give up the struggle to be good.\u201d<\/p>\n

But rather than just celebrate these figures without critique, the exhibition explores, as Lambson explains, \u201cthe complexity of the myth of the hero, the hero\u2019s relationship to the monster, [and] how a monster or hero is defined by perception.\u201d This is done through four central themes: Heroes, Monsters, Violence and Mythology. The exhibition is staged in such a way that you can turn left and face the monsters first or turn right and navigate through heroic figures. Guided by Lambson, I turned right.<\/p>\n

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Yoram Walberger, “Male Baseball #1”
3D CNC sculpting, bronze and chrome, 2009<\/p><\/div>\n

Here are Michael Scoggins\u2019 large-scale notebook drawings; Yoram Wolberger\u2019s life-size, shiny silver baseball trophy topper; Jason Yarmosky\u2019s Caravaggio-like painting of old folks playing cards dressed in superhero costumes; and Cory Arcangel and Paper Rad\u2019s video deconstructing the Super Mario game, where systematic breakdown affects Mario\u2019s abilities to garner coins or superpowers, impacting his capacity to ever accomplish his futile goal.<\/p>\n

Yet it is Ben Turnbell\u2019s sculpture, \u201cBring Me the Head of Saddam Hussein, ,\u201d that is the most bold. The larger-than-life Captain America action figure, covered in a shiny blue plastic spandex, bulging with steroid-induced muscles and a frozen smile, holds the head of a cartoonish Saddam Hussein. In an attempt to mitigate the politically loaded nature of the sculpture, Lambson missteps by using the interpretive labels to discuss biblical references to John the Baptist and art historical similarities to Caravaggio while failing to truly grapple with the gruesomeness and conflictedness of the sculpture. What seems to be at stake in the sculpture is not its dialogue with\u00a0Gardener\u2019s Art Through the Ages,<\/em>\u00a0but rather, its uncomfortable ambiguity. Is the artist doing this ironically or sincerely? The lack of clarity is unsettling. What are the political implications?<\/p>\n

Because, of course, Captain America has a political heritage, as Lambson points out. In a 1941 comic, he punched out Hitler. But what he is doing here is significantly more violent than punching someone out, holding in his outstretched arm the decapitated head of a violent dictator. Certainly, I\u2019m not trying to arouse sympathy for Hussein, but rather to nuance the positioning of this plastic Captain America action figure.<\/p>\n

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Ben Turnbell “Bring Me the Head of Saddam Hussein” Mixed media, 2008<\/p><\/div>\n

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John Bell “Untitled (Bob Dylan)”
Mixed media, 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

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Professor Tyrone Davies”;”heroes_001.jpg”;”Battle Brigades
Video, 6:49 minutes, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

To his credit, Lambson does later nuance the contemporary hero by stating, \u201cWe can read about innocent civilian casualties of war or politician\u2019s infidelities. Today many of our knights are \u2018dark,\u2019 a more complex reflection of our growing awareness of ourselves and our shrinking planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

This nuancing of our hero\u2019s journey ending in an absolutely happy ending is made complicated in the exhibit\u2019s \u201cMythology\u201d section. Dina Goldstein\u2019s \u201cSnowy\u201d makes humorous the absurdity and pervasiveness of the Disney princess who is almost always magically whisked away with her love, on a cloud of pure bliss, happily ever after. In Goldstein\u2019s photograph, a tired and annoyed Snow White stares at the camera in frustration, surrounded as she is by diapered crying \u201cdwarfs\u201d as her less-than-polished Prince Charming slouches and watches TV. Reality and maternal jouissance is, of course, more nuanced than mythology.<\/p>\n

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Elizabetha Jablonska “House Games,” 2002
(Washing, Cooking, Laundry) Edition 3\/6
C-Print on Sentra faced with UV Plexiglas, 2002<\/p><\/div>\n

By contrast, the heroism of the strong, Madonna-like mother dressed in Superman garb and holding her son that we find in Polish artist Elizabetha Jablonska\u2019s photograph, \u201cHouse Games (Washing, Cooking, Laundry),\u201d is obvious. The MOA\u2019s use of the image as the exhibition\u2019s frontispiece is a strategic move as it helps to mitigate a subject matter otherwise dominated by hyper masculinity, overtly sexualized heroines and male comic book artists.<\/p>\n

As for the Monsters, they are wonderfully horrible, uncanny and haunting. Cameron Gainer\u2019s \u201cBig Foot\u201d sculpture is positioned in such a way that it caught me off guard, suddenly looming over my shoulder, coming at me in full stride. Jeff Larsen\u2019s performance and reappropriation of the Utah Mormon primary song \u201cOnce there was a Snowman\u201d is eerie and uncanny: this dowdy monster is lonely and hauntingly confused, not evil, and certainly not villainous or even threatening.<\/p>\n

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Jeff Larsen, “Angel
Painting,” 2008<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cSometimes monsters are just misunderstood,\u201d says Lambson. \u201cCentered upon our insecurities, monsters often embody the \u2018other.\u2019 As personified points of unfamiliarity, a thing can become monstrous to us when it fails to fall within the bounds of traditional human rationality.\u201d Irrationality is exactly what is scary about the snowman. It\u2019s not your typical angry Yeti, but in its eeriness, it remains threatening.<\/p>\n

What we call and see as monstrous and evil depends, of course, on our perspective.<\/p>\n

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Cameron Gainer “Big Foot” Mixed media, 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

Violence is what unites heroes and monsters. In Annie Poon\u2019s installation and video, \u201cDie Wicked Die!,\u201d the viewer encounters a crudely drawn cartoon of some of the most violent sections of the Bible and Book of Mormon: David cutting off the head of Goliath, Ammon chopping off the arms of the Lamanites, and Nephi\u2019s beheading of Laban. The style and accoutrements in the room bespeak the 1980s: a wooden-paneled TV with VCR, videocassettes, old looking board games, the wood-trimmed country blue couch with paisley patterns, and haphazardly placed boots and laundry. It\u2019s a clear reference to the lived childhood experience of the middle-class Generation X American. Lambson and I are part of this moment in time, where we grew up witnessing the transition from analog to digital technology.<\/p>\n

Lambson seems to be hitting his curatorial stylistic stride with We Could be Heroes. Over the past five years Lambson has consistently made efforts to address, recontextualize and historicize artists and themes that emerge out of a 1980s technological paradigm. Think: Michael Whiting 8-bit sculptures,\u00a0Mirror, Mirror\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>exploration of the video game identity and facebook profile identities, and even –though to a lesser extent — Lambson\u2019s exhibition\u00a0Matter of Words, which attested to the transition from books to Kindle. This penchant for 1980s nostalgi<\/em>a isn\u2019t only Lambson\u2019s, but can be seen as a common theme emerging in contemporary art dialogue, especially for young contemporary artists like BYU\u2019s Daniel Everett, who showed recently at the UMFA, and Dutch artist Constant Dullaart, who showed at UMOCA last year.<\/p>\n

As for\u00a0We Could Be Heroes,<\/em>\u00a0it reflects long afternoons dedicated to Atari video games, superhero action figures & comic books on Lambson\u2019s part. But from that childhood origin comes a rich and intelligent language that grapples with our tech- driven and entrenched society. Further, mythologies of heroes and monsters, and the dichotomies these myths create, seem especially current when placed in the context of a post 9\/11 psyche where dramatic and sudden monstrous attacks on civic life have come to make up the lived experience of the 21st century. Like so many before us, the hopes in our heroes and the fears of our monsters continue to persist and questions remain. What is our personal hero\u2019s journey? How do we battle our monsters? Can we be Heroes?<\/p>\n

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We Could Be Heroes: The Mythology of Monsters and Heroes in Contemporary Art<\/em>\u00a0is at the\u00a0BYU Museum of Art<\/a>\u00a0through April 6<\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laura Hurtado reviews curator Jeff Lambson’s new exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1559,"featured_media":15420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[1173],"class_list":["post-15347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-byu-moa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/heroes.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-15 21:15:45","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15347"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56465,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15347\/revisions\/56465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}