‘Once More, With Feeling’

 

‘Levitation of the Cryptoid’ by Matt Molloy                         Writer: Michelle Osborne

 

 

An extraordinary scene of dramatic indifference and blank sensationalism from artist Matt Molloy awaits in the final show for City Art Rooms. Four objects ‘wondrous strange’ ¹ appear inert and silent in the gallery space, mysteriously caught in mid-stare. While there’s no doubt that each has a potent part to play, they perform individually, absent from one another and even from themselves. ‘Levitation of the Cryptoid’ is sculpture with a capital S, but executed with all the assured chicanery of a mastermagician.

 

An enormous supine form takes centre stage, tenderly laid out on the gallery floor. Yet on closer inspection this is also ‘mop man’ and teddy bear, with chunky legs and a featureless head. All covered over in a luxuriant mass of thick string it’s the stuff of an outsized toy basket. This is neither for a child’s embrace, nor does it function entirely as a distress symbol for bodily insecurity in the vein of Mike Kelley. The stuffed toy is there, all hand-worked in ‘love hours’ ² but we can’t get too carried away. It’scuriously entertaining as well.

 

The artists’ presence, palpable from a distance, is wittily disguised, the emotional intensity of the work being excised in a playfully obsessive engagement with material.

A pair of heavy-looking cast feet, made in curious Greco- Roman style, are ‘finished’ to appear as if found in an archaeological site and mischievously re-assembled. This oddity brings to mind the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul where pillars, blocks and even two medusa heads have been pillaged from Roman buildings and appropriated to create a new empire. An ancient economy of making has found its way into a satirical investigation of time and process. A low plinth and a touch of gilt on the left toe complete the scenario.

 

Plinths have figured in previous works, always with an eye to their subversive potential. Whether using solid concrete, light-as-air-polystyrene, a handy piece ofcardboard or indeed no plinth at all, Molloy demonstrates a preoccupation with vivifying the processes and problems of making sculpture. In keeping with this, the artists working methods are sometimes peculiarly exposed, the gallery becoming a kind of open laboratory for experimental activity.³

 

The Temporal Expansion of the Waka Mere’ takes these explorations to new heights. The grotesque appearance of the mal-formed heads ‘is exacerbated by the ‘operation-in progress’ and a mirrored plinth beneath pours oil on already troubled waters. It is a ‘roll-your eyes’ moment of looking and experiencing. There’s even a handle to crank up the alchemical heat.

 

It is worth delving further into the melodrama of the title, which appears to have escaped spontaneously from the artist’s imagination and captured the very heart of the matter, in the way of all good fiction. Whether working in the shadowy world of Maori myth and legend, the pseudoscience of cryptozoology, or a Sci-Fi dystopian past, Molloy not only plays to our worst fears and uncertainties but also ramps them up. The travails of sculpture are employed to construct a kind of ‘theatre of the moment’ ⁴ where the austere formalism of modernist, particularly minimalist, sculpture has morphed into the spectacle of the dazzling, the disturbing and the more than slightly off.

 

This resonates with the work of artist Jim Lambie, whose on-going investigation into form is often belied by the seduction of the experience. Lambie uses low tech and discarded materials such as old jeans, broken mirrors and various accoutrements of music and musical equipment together with bright vinyl taping to create ecstatic psychedelic objects and environments which destabilise the viewer’s space. ⁵ When entering ‘Levitation of the Cryptoid’ we are similarly disorientated and enchanted - the ‘discord is musical and the thunder sweet.’⁶  

 

As in previous works, there’s latent movement here, though this time the artist has lain the body down instead of upending it, as in ‘Fly Baby’ or stacking it up as in ‘Post Packed.’ The Cryptoid’s head and legs have been raised only slightly off the ground, in a laconic levitating gesture. With the same deft hand a pair of feet have been wedged heel-to heel in an unlikely romance, two mouldering heads skewered and a deflated crocodile head left limp and discarded on the gallery floor.

 

Something else has happened; the more familiar ‘props’ have been secreted away. The teeming visceral multiples, a selection of which appeared in ‘The Swarm’ ⁷ are reduced to a group of four seemingly disparate elements. Gone are the swabs, boxes, bones and electrical chords. Gone is the titillating gesture to the subculture of backstreet violence witnessed in the mass of human detritus which formed ‘Slaughterama.’ Absent also is the soundtrack; the monotonous intoning of‘Deslabbed’ and the laugh out loud riff of the Beach Boys partying to the cerebral autopsy of ‘Mr Stabby’

 

The ‘Cryptoid’ is flat out, abandoned and alone, overwhelmed by the fantastic size of its own body. These feet aren’t made for walking, they’re going nowhere soon and the crocodile head lies abject, its sly grin having lost its edge. It is “Croc from Sheepodile” with gaping, toothless, rubber jaws; even the colour is fading away. Life is suspended, the frame has been frozen, but do you hear stifled laughter coming from inside? The battle zone of disgust and amusement ⁸ has been upstaged by aneven more powerful abutment of dead-pan humour and despair. Even the actors have exited the scene, leaving their bodies behind.

 

Tragical mirth? Merry and tragical? Where is the concord in this discord? ⁹ It is tempting to reply that the answer is 42, but there is a serious intention to this state of play. ¹⁰ The irresistible ‘visual glamour’ and emotional intensity of the forms is turned on itself to become a floor show in the gallery. ¹¹ Molloy describes this as ‘the immediate spectacle pushing against the spectacle.’ By fervently making, discarding, reusing and reworking the artist has created an inherently contradictory space which is, in fact, more true than strange. The question is not one of meaning, but of feeling The discordant notes of ‘Levitation of the Cryptoid’ are performed ‘par excellence’ to effect an alternate and transcendent experience, an ellipse between this world and the next in the wink of an eye, or eye-less as the case may be.

 

 

 

Personal communication from the artist is gratefully acknowledged

 

 

1. Theseus Act V(i) in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

2. Weintraub, L, Danto, A and McEvilley, T (1996) Art on the Edge and Over Lichfield, Art Insights Inc.

3. Claudine Ise, of UCLA Hammer Museum, and Luke Parker of Lord Mori Gallery Interview with Hany Armanious (2001)  www.michaellett.com

4. Shamim Momin Ice Cream: Contemporary Art in Culture (2007) Phaidon: NY

5.Ibid

6. Hippolyta Act 1V (i) William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream The quote was also adapted for a composition by Duke Ellington “Such Sweet Thunder”

7. ‘Amalgamator’ (2009) was exhibited in ‘The Swarm’ curated by Andrew Clifford at The Gus Fisher Gallery.

8. ‘A Lower Animal’ (2009) www.cityartrooms.co.nz

9. Theseus Act V(i) in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

10. Adams, Douglas (1979) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Pan Books: London. When asked why he chose the number 42 in answer to the question of Life, the Universe and Everything Douglas replied ‘It was a joke.’ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/phrases

11. Shamim Momin in Ice Cream: Contemporary Art in Culture (2007) Phaidon: NY