Snowman
With 10 days left until Christmas we release our second in a collection of grotesque, demented, or just bizarre snowmen. Today's snowman was stumbled upon on Liana Bortolozzo's Blog post regarding artist, Tony Tassert. Some of Tassert's work caught my eye by using iconic horror imagery and tweaking it slightly to express angst or irony or something artsy, symbolic, and/or meaningful. Of course art mixed with horror is a double edged sword which is simultaneously redeeming and destroying the genre, but for myself the appeal to horror is that in not taking it seriously you are often surprised when something substantial and thought-provoking is presented.
This Sculpture aptly named "Snowman" is described by Bortolozzo as "underlying something slightly rundown, rotton and sticky, and a little bit sad." Tassert's comments on the piece were as follows: "Could I take something that's so banal, so quoted, that everybody has kind of made, and could I treat it like a Giacommetti? Could I give it that pathos and existential angst?" Typical artist fare. An artist creates something commonplace in an attempt to destroy it in the minds of their viewers or provoke a reaction. Kinda has that Warhol ring to it, the sort of art where you look at it and say well I could of done that, except for the simple fact you didn't do it, and you didn't think to do it, so poo on you.
Anywho, on reflection of the piece I think Tassert does an excellent job, he expertly created something which looks like it had been eroded by nature for weeks and he conveys expression with minimal materials for maximum effect. It looks as though a piece of art that you would just stumble across naturally outdoors through time and exposure to the elements, not a carefully crafted piece built from the ground up. If I look at this long enough I can almost envision the artistic process in deciding just the right placement of materials and angles to give the final effect.
So naturally this isn't a real snowman, considering there isn't a single snowflake in the entire sculpture, but come back soon we're saving the real snowmen for closer to Christmas. Until then enjoy the winter weather, and feel free to share any of your own bizarre snowmen with us here at horror camp.
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