T O X I C U S M A S C U L I N U M
TOXICUS MASCULINUM - SEPTEMBER 15 2020 - OCTOBER 15 2020
PRESS STATEMENT:
“Hey! Hey! Listen up. Let me tell you something. A man ain’t a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting, every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can’t chop down because they’re inside.”
-Toni Morrison, Beloved
In a land where bigger is better, violence equals power, and emotions are perceived signs of weakness muscle clad protagonists perform manhood and sell masculinity on big screens and across billboards. TOXICUS MASCULINUM, a two-person exhibition explores the matrix of gendered ideologies embedded within the fabric of American culture through the work of Elliot Purse and Zebadiah Keneally. Purse’s drawings and Keneally’s murals allow viewers to reexamine images of heroes and strong men ubiquitous throughout childhood. Like the 1988 sci-fi thriller, They Live, TOXICUS MASCULINUM reveals and reinterprets the coded subliminal messages produced by the world of TV entertainment and maximalist consumer culture.
Elliot Purse’s larger than life drawings examine the male form as a site for idolatry. Rendered in charcoal, gouache, and pastel on paper floating clusters of composite musculature draw a direct line to antiquity. However, Purse’s figuration is intrinsically informed by the images of the stadiums and wrestling rings he emphatically absorbed on television as a child. The super-sized dismembered body parts isolated against a stark white ground exploit the traditional cannon and distill notions of cultural desire into a grotesque idealization of power and manhood. Each drawing is an amalgamation of found imagery, memories, and imagination that reflect the institutionalized ideas of success present within a culture that demands results.
Zebadiah Keneally’s mural paintings thematically parallel and theatrically counter Purse’s monumental monochromatic drawings. Like Purse, drawing serves as a pillar for Keneally’s practice and a means for the artist to quickly capture daily observations. Keneally employs a comic-book-like mode of illustration to translate modern life into succinct paneled narratives. Existential questions or aspirational words spelled out in hefty block letters confront and harass animated figures in a number of Keneally’s constructed hypothetical scenarios. Cartoonish caricatures, such as ‘Hamburger Vampire’, ‘Bad Vibes’, and ‘God’, find their origin within hundreds of the artist’s drawings but take on new life in Keneally’s videos and performances. Keneally’s work addresses the discrete transition from adolescence into personhood and speaks to its trials, tribulations, and philosophical ponderings.
Weeks away from yet another consequential presidential election set against the backdrop a global pandemic, TOXICUS MASCULINUM leans into this moment and contemplates the role of media and entertainment in shaping the psyche of American culture.
Curated by Katie Hector