Mark Jenkins' absurdist sculptures are always witty and mostly appealing. But, inevitably, they prompt uncomfortable and nauseating questions human beings would really rather not deal with. How can we be sensitive and playful yet so ruthlessly concerned with our own urges? Are tramps horrible, sad or funny? And indeed what the hell shall we do, as time goes on, with all our bullshit? Yet alone all those useless, old, and unattractive people who seem to grow in number by the day?
Mark Jenkins' sculptures might look cute, but they have issues. Of his “Storker” baby sculptures, placed around the landscape of his native Washington DC, Mark wrote “if by passing one you feel strange sensations in your nipples or fingertips, adopt the infant, breast feed, and give it plenty of TLC. It will gradually mature into a full size Tape Man or Woman to co-habitate with you and eventually take you to the Glazed Paradise – or possibly oust you from your home.”
Equally black comedy are Jenkins' adult-sized “dummies” (his description) of vagrant body parts in impossible and violent situations. All the pieces pounce with the benefit of surprise. “There's so much rubbish on the streets already that the pieces I put up are camouflaged and ambiguous. The vagrant dummies too; like real homeless people they're so much part of the urban landscape that you're desensitised to the sight of them,” says Mark.
The artist uses his own hand-me-downs on the “Homeless Dummies”, and makes their bodies using a dry casting process whereby he wraps himself in packing tape. (The babies, similarly, are made using toy dollies.) He calls placing his simulacra in public spaces “an out of body experience.”
Mark's pieces for Lazarides include a decapitated Christ upon Golgotha and a cattle skull-headed figure banished to the corner of the gallery. They creep us out, but we can't help loving them.
Mark Jenkins' new monograph, 'The Urban Theater', will be released next week through renowned art book publishers Gestalten. To coincide with the release of this 160-page hardcover, full colour edition, Mark will be exhibiting several of his thought-provoking sculptures in an exhibition titled 'Glazed Paradise' at the Berlin-based publishers house.
