Monday, May 03, 2004
Also seen on PBS...
Sculptor Pat Keck on WGBH Boston's Art Close Up via WVIA TV 44
"One of the things that attracted me to this kind of subject matter, is that people don't tend to view them as objects, they tend to view them as little beings, and you are likely to talk to them. I can't imagine anybody addressing Michelangelo's "David," with "excuse me," if you bumped into it.
But once you joint them and they sit down the way you would, or they end up landing in a heap looking very human, then yeah, definitely, when they get to a certain stage, they seem to develop personalities. Maybe personalities that I've imposed, but, yeah, you do start talking to them. Not in a delusional way, but just because there's nobody else to talk to." -- Pat Keck
Documentation for a recent exhibit reads:
Since the late ’70s, Keck has made painted wood figurative sculptures, many of them mechanical and interactive... Keck’s idiosyncratic and stylized characters exist on the edge of humanity and consciousness: mechanical and utilitarian figures like scarecrows, dummies, toys, puppets, robots, and automatons; semi-sentient figures like somnambulists, ghosts, and monsters; and a host of androgynous “men” engaged in quasi-ritualistic, mysterious activities. Influenced by folk and vernacular arts, especially those associated with carnivals and the circus, as well as visual elements from vaudeville, Glam Rock, Punk, and New Wave, her work leavens fear with humor. It grapples with issues of control versus free will, the relationship of the conscious to the subconscious mind, and the mysteries of self-awareness, sleep, and ultimately, death.
An article in the Providence Phoenix provides more information about Keck.
One of her major inspirations has been cult musician Klaus Nomi, who makes interesting research in and of himself.
