Beyond Sculpture:
Function, Commodity, and Reinvention in Contemporary Art
David Baskin
David Baskin is a sculptor and installation artist who casts clothing and furniture in materials such as plaster and rubber. His work, steeped in biography, explores the personal histories of friends and family.
My work incorporates objects from the every day, whether they are based on my own private history or from those of others. My real interest is the transformation that occurs when an object is re-contextualized as a work of art. I appropriate images from the practicality of everyday life, notably within the domestic setting. I collaborated with Debbie Goldberg on a piece called Debbie's House. (fig 1)This particular show was based on issues of domesticity. The exhibition took place in a rather unconventional gallery, that is, within a home, a Georgian revival house. My intent was to create a miniature home within the larger context of the house. Initially I was going to cast all the little furniture in bronze, but that became a Herculean effort and there was no way I was going to get it done. I found out that Debbie Goldberg had an incredible dollhouse collection, so I invited her to collaborate with me. The piece changed a bit in the sense that Debbie became the subject. It became about her personal history and how she best remembered dealing with these miniatures as a child. It brought up the issue of play and how play becomes a conduit for real life.
To push the dreamlike quality of the setting further, I incorporated photographs of the environment that existed beyond the structure itself. I wanted to break the barriers between outdoor and indoor space. It is a reference to early Roman villas, where architecturally, the window structures weren't large enough to show what lay beyond the walls. Quite often, frescoes would depict what existed directly beyond the structure itself, blurring interior and exterior, private and universal space.
This piece is a recreation of a portion of my grandparent's apartment in Queens that is suspended 25 feet in the air. (fig 2) It was created within the context of a show called Natural Histories and dealt with classification systems within museums. Smack Melon was an old spice factory housed within a cavernous structure. The goal was to bring a domestic setting into this factory-like environment that exists as a gallery. As a result, a tension between private and public spaces occurred. As with recreated settings in a museum environment the personal, whether it is the bed chamber of Louis the XIV or an African amulet, no longer have the intimate ties to the culture in which it was conceived but have been objectified to the point of a curiosity. First, the viewer would enter and see the furniture suspended. While walking up to the mezzanine level it seemed as if the object were floating on a plane. By suspending it, it became a metaphor for something unattainable or frozen in time. To objectify it further, I made molds directly off the actual furniture and then cast them in plaster. The material is plaster resin, so it's quite durable. I use this particular material because I wanted a calcified bone white quality to it. The pieces of furniture hovered between being seemingly functional and completely non-functional. They were reduced to pure objects and played off the notion of the simulacra; a copy that essentially replaces the original source. After I made molds off the objects, the casts exists as the real items did. In other words, I made an individual mold of the cushion itself, the china closet, and everything in it.
All of the work addresses the body on a certain level, without actually the depiction of the figure. These pieces that came out of the same molds as the plaster furniture started to address the body more directly and became more human in scale. (fig 3)They're cast in urethane rubber and dyed. The pink one is called Skin Series, to reference skins, hides, or tailor clothing patterns that are laid out before they are assembled and shaped. To fold it would create the actual dimensional form. Because of the rubber material, I thought of them as being a bit sexualized as well. This is piece is called Well Hung Table. (fig 4)
This work is an installation piece done in the Black and White Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It became a bit playful. (fig 5, 6) They're all cast in urethane resin as well, but they are rigid. I used the site as a canvas to punch it with a bit of some color, creating a strange excavated archeological site. These fragmented elements become different layered settings.
This piece was shown at the Brooklyn Museum, and the elements were cast from my grandfather's wardrobe. (fig 7) Molds were made directly from the actual articles of clothing. Everything was destroyed in the process. It is not so much a piece about my grandfather as an individual, or a piece of nostalgia, but rather, it was more of a stepping stone. I became interested in issues of the fetish that began with the conception of the rubber furniture pieces. It brought into play the different concepts of the fetish for me in the sense of memento mori, preserving things of personal or religious significance, the sexualization of the body with regard to male and female sensibility. It is a very masculine wardrobe from a particular time period that is a bit feminized by color. What is really instrumental about this piece, as well as with the cast plaster piece, is that the details really had to come through. They had to be very accurately cast.
Lastly, this series is an offshoot of the clothing. The same molds were used. With the clothing and wardrobe piece, the intent was not to have my hand showing; they were really quite accurate objects and casts, faithful to the originals. In contrast, these were a bit more experimental. The rubber I use as a liquid component catalyzes when mixed together. Before that happens, I pour it in the mold and draw with it. I refer to these as drawings or prints. Right before it gets hard, I put a backing on it, rub it, pull it out of the mold, and it would transfer to the backing itself. This image is from the coat (fig 8)
