Mark Jenkins is a social practice artist. That basically means that the physical products of his work are tools for establishing a particular interaction. These are not sculptures but props for a performance that takes place every time they are looked at by the viewer. As Stephen Maticjio (Curator, SECCA) quotes him:
And while these agents can be considered in the tradition of sculpture, Jenkins sees them less as art, and more as “questions.” More
specifically, he places these objects into the environment with no intention of reclaiming
them – allowing these questions/agents to “live” in public space without
restrictions, labels, or expectations.
(the rest of the essay available here)
I saw him speak at SECCA in winston-salem with some other folks from Elsewhere Artist Collective, since we do some of the ole' social practice art ourselves and I was pretty underwhelmed by the guy. He's not a terribly great speaker and his artwork lost a good deal of it's punch when I heard him describe it's more shocking aspects with a blithe and affected tone of boredom.
This was especially annoying when he dealt with the moment at which these mock humans could be described as a mean practical joke on the viewer. This piece got a police report, since it looks like a corpse:
There was a guy standing next to me at the lecture was absolutely livid at this. I was embarrassed because the man was turning red with anger, getting shriller and shriller as he repeated the phrase "Isn't it just advertising for you when this happens? People get scared! you profit from fear" and he kept saying "well, that's just, like, your opinion"...
I still like the guy's work, but don't look for anything more profound than the "wow, neat." moment.
here's some neat stuff from winston.
s
wow. Lee Walton is way cooler anyway.
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