Will Boone, No Man’s Land (Installation View), via Karma
Artist Will Boone presents a body of new sculpture this month in New York at Karma’s East 2nd Street location, a scenic tableau that mixes together a studied investigation of still-life, pop culture and a range of varied iconographies and techniques.Â
Will Boone, No Man’s Land (Installation View), via Karma
Titled No Man’s Land, the show presents a scenic exhibition that began for Will Boone with an encounter at a swap meet in 2017. Among a menagerie of figurines, toys, horror movie monsters, and busts of United States presidents and music legends, Boone found resonance with sculptures of antiquity. Medusa and Julius Caesar were swapped for Frankenstein and John F. Kennedy; dinged-up plastic and flaking enamel paint took the place of chipped marble and weathered bronze. Marking a strange point of echo for an artist who transforms relics of Americana into bronze statues, the scenes were instantly captivating, and saw the artist turning towards the classic mode of diorama.
Will Boone, No Man’s Land (Installation View), via Karma
The works on view here are hand-painted with enamel paint, producing a brushy and vibrant surface that recalls classic model painting or that of collectible figurines, here blown up to life-size. Amidst cacti and aloes, a tiger and a barking dog have a standoff at the gallery’s center. A rabbit leaps across a skull and an eagle hangs from the ceiling. A vulture perches on a rock, surveying bones. Several works are deliberately paired together, forming tableaus: a rat and a ribcage, an eagle and a bat, a spider’s web amidst barren branches, a cactus sprouts from a foot. A sculpture hall sourced from the desert of American culture, the exhibition marks the first time this body of work will be shown in its entirety.
Will Boone, No Man’s Land (Installation View), via Karma
Boone’s sculptures stand in a playful arrangement, like an abandoned movie set. Their bronze construction guarantees their permanence, through which Boone unites the vastness of time with the vastness of the desert. There, we find his sculptures, lingering in the inexorable unknown that is No Man’s Land.
The show closes February 25th.
– D. Creahan
Read more:
Will Boone at Karma [Exhibition Site]
