Humorous and solipsistic are two terms that have been used to describe Tim Hawkinson’s art—quite a mix, if you consider that humor aims to please an audience, while solipsism renders any such audience superfluous. Perhaps obsessive self-portraiture and extroverted drollery meet best in The Fin Within, 1995, in which an elegant aluminum mermaid’s tail, cast from the space between Hawkinson’s legs, suggests both sexual frustration and gender confusion. In Ranting Mop Head (Synthesized Voice), 1995, humor takes an absurd turn: Synthetic vocal cords—consisting of motors, valves, and compressed air—provide the squawking voice to an upright, anthropomorphic mop.
If these sculptures, on display at NYEHAUS, cement Hawkinson’s reputation as a ingenious tinkerer who creates fully formed objects of marvel, then the charm of his newer work, on view at PaceWildenstein, shifts slightly in nature: Now it’s his turn to marvel at modernity’s prefab contraptions, as with Finger Skid, 2006, a composite scan of his hand swerving across the scanner’s document bed. In Foot Quilt, 2007—a wall-size fabric piece with stitches that create an enlarged replica of his footprint—one can imagine the artist’s delight in purchasing and mastering an industrial-grade quilting machine. That’s not to say that Hawkinson is abandoning his old Rube Goldberg ways: In Deposition, 2007, the artist has outfitted a giant branch with pulleys and motors that move a string of beads along its contour, occasionally triggering a whistle. But with works like Finger Skid and Foot Quilt—as well as Sunrise, 2007, in which the artist turns his scanner to the view from his porch at dawn—we can finally begin to envision just how Hawkinson creates his work.
This exhibition is also on view at PaceWildenstein, 545 W. 22nd St., until June 9.
