Art in a contemporary sense can take on a different significance
in the context of its location. Such is the case with the installations of Tony
Tasset monumental works encountered in the setting of Laumeier
Sculpture Park in the Saint Louis suburban community of Sunset Hills.
Master of the vernacular, mixed-media artist Tony Tasset sends-up
Americana and the American dream in his sardonic, psychedelic sculptures, installations, films, and photographs, which he
describes as “Pop Conceptual.” He generates works that he sends across the country
and abroad - A giant Paul Bunyan with uncharacteristically drooping
shoulders; trompe l’oeil snowmen and smashed jack-o-lanterns; abstract compositions
on panel of colored blotches spilling from various consumer products and fast
foods; and a grotesque, cartoonish figure composed of hotdogs. Citing Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney as influences, Tasset aims to tap into—and
twist—iconic American imagery, asking: “Could I take something that's so banal,
so quoted, that everybody has kind of made, and could I treat it like a Giacometti? Could I give it that pathos and existential angst?”
Tony Tasset (b. 1960, Cincinnati, Ohio, based in Chicago, Illinois)
is proudly featured at Laumeier with his
Eye (a favorite of visitors – especially kids) and recently added Deer 2015 which first caught the
attention of sculpture park board members at Miami’s Art Basel celebration. Meanwhile in Chicago The Year of Public Art was kicked into
gear this past summer on the Chicago Riverwalk with public art installations
that included a most noticeable sculpture by Tony Tasset - a deer (between
Franklin and Lake Streets) for a limited time. The giant lifelike deer gazed
into the distance as boat tours and selfie-takers pass in front of it. At Laumeier
a Tony Tasset deer seems so very at home for visitors to enjoy as it was
introduced formally at the Big Dinner fundraising event in September 2017.
The Eye and the Deer can be seen, in this context, matter-of-factly and with a greater sense of permanence.
It is, perhaps an important differentiator of what it means to have such works
on view in our own backyard.
Drawing by young girl who was visiting the park on Family Fun Day on 10-08-17
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