When I was in my mid 20s and running around within the party culture of NYC, I stumbled on Tom Otterness’ public art installation, “Life Underground.” I was heading to a show in the Meatpacking district when, on a head full of LSD, I stumbled upon a bunch of trippy little characters in the 8th Avenue subway station. I had so many questions.
It would be a lie if I said Tom’s work has influenced my own; it has not. What it has done, is give me a different kind of appreciation for public art & sculpture. Prior to his work, I always thought of sculpture as a realm that belonged in the purview of great names like Auguste Rodin, Constantin Brâncuși, Donatello, Leonardo, and so on, so forth. As it turned out, contemporary sculpture is pretty fucking badass, and there are many great sculptors breathing the same air as us today.
What I love the absolute most about his work, especially with this public mass transit installation, is that it has absolutely fucking zero intention of selling you something. Millions of people see these funky little characters every day, and many of them are seeing them for the first time. It is art for art’s sake, but there is also a political context playing out with this seemingly random installation.
The social commentary his work is putting on display here is phenomenal. In a society that is experiencing the peak of modern capitalism (and probably unwittingly stumbling into its death throes), seeing a spread of anthropomorphic characters ranging from working class to upper class doing their thing at a very busy subway station is hilariously ironic. These are analogues for life in NYC, as well as any other metropolitan area where all classes of people share common spaces like public transit. Yes, even our rich bankers and politicians occasionally take the subway here, with the rest of us peasants.
My work with suspension falls under the category of “living sculpture,” and while it is often durational, it is defined in many ways by how impermanent it is. Short lived moments conveying heavily emotive concepts. Metal sculpture like Tom’s is defined by permanence, and its long term aging is intentional. While something like marble sculpture fractures and crumbles over the years, bronze sculpture has a way of showing wear and age in a beautiful, organic sort of way. It doesn’t break; it matures.
Surfaces with more traffic, interaction, and physical contact stay shiny, and show some scuffs and scratches consistently. Areas that are less frequently in contact with the world around them, show a progressive oxidization layer, which I always thought of like moss growing over undisturbed surfaces in forests. A green oxidized layer is the easiest way to identify bronze as a metal on older pieces, an aesthetic show of age. Sometimes I wish humans tarnished differently as well, but I do love the way we scar and age.
Maybe Time is the ultimate artist, and we are just submitting our own creations for it to have its way with them. Some mediums last longer. The next time I write about Tom’s work, I will visit some of his other art, that have also aged beautifully over the years.
My podcast with Maria Pleshkova drops this week. Be sure to check her work out beforehand if you can.