Mimesis, a sculpture by artist Jason Kaufman

Sculpture

Memesis

Acrylic, Wood, Concrete, Mime Gloves

8' x 3'

2011

Memesis is an investigation into historic notion of art as reproduction, thrice removed from the 'real'. Plato gives us the example of a table to illustrate this point. According to Plato there exists somewhere, apart from the world of our experience, an ideal form of pure tableness. It is ideal because it contains within it the potential for all tables. When inspiration strikes and the artist begins to envision the possible tables that could be created, they are participating in a slightly corrupt version of the ideal form of tableness. Slowly the all inclusive, ideal form of tableness is winnowed away until the artist holds within their mind a specific version of a table. They draft a blueprint and gather wood. They work meticulously until a table exists in hard fact. In its specificness this physical table is less ideal, because it denies the endless variations that are contained within the ideal form of tableness. Thus, human thought and artistic re-presentation are, according to Plato, both forms of Memesis, or imitation.

Any table that can be pointed at is excluded from the category of Ideal Tabe. In this way, all of our signifiers seem only to relate to the

signified through a kind of negation. In Memesis I have investigated this idea as it relates to Identity. There are a number of ways this investigation proceeds. 1) Memesis is stenciled across the bottom of the sculpture. This gesture overtly puts the issue of identity at the center of this work, because when the drawer is opened the ME of meMEsis is highlighted. This brings focus not only to the ME/myself, as subject portrayed, but also the ME of the viewer. 2) The drawer contains a stack of mime gloves, which are meant to represent the many selves and personalities that reside in each of us. We don these personalities like gloves, but none of them is the authentic kernal of self so sought after by romantic modernists. Mimes inhabit and interact with a world that does not exist, or which exists only in their imagination. In this way, an absence is declared by the presence of the Mime. 3) I've left eight physical imprints of my hands, set in concrete. This gesture is antipodal to that of the mime. Whereas the mime is the only presence through which we can glean the trace or outline of their imaginary world, here the world (the concrete and wood of the sculpture) is the only presence through which we can glean the physical trace of my having existed. i.e. My presence is declared through a gesture of my absence. 4) I've painted a realistic self-portrait, a two-dimensional representation of my face. This is classic memesis. I've also painted a cardiovascular web, which refers the intricacies of the human body in general, which replicates endlesses and with little variation based upon a template writ in the DNA. Therefore, my body, all bodies, are a sort-of biological memesis.

Nice Skid, Tex

46.5" x 26"

Acrylic, Grout, Dirt, Beer Can

2012

$1,500

"Nice Skid, Tex," the old man shouted from the porch.

And it was. The longest of the day, but the boy knew he could do better. He circled his horse—a yellow ’78 Schwinn Pixie—in the lingering cloud of dust and peddled slowly down the alley, strategizing his next attempt.

"Yer a regular…," the old man called after him, but the boy was out of sight and the declaration reached his ears inchoate, trailing off into a drunken slur.

The boy didn’t need to hear the rest; he knew there was nothing regular about him.

When the boy reached Donaldson’s brick red barn he turned his horse again and looked down the length of the alley. He took account of the variables at play. He measured the wind. He noted the pot holes in the crumbling asphalt and mapped his slalom course. He looked left and saw that he was aligned with the barn window; one of its four panes of glass was chinked at the corner where he’d thrown a rock through it. Alignment with that window meant he was the perfect distance from the delta of dirt at the opposite end of the alley. The rhythmic thrust of his thin legs would bring him to top speed just before he reached it.

The boy stood his whole weight downward against the pedal. The crankset strained against the chain. The back tire, already nearly bald, burped on the cinders. His legs were pale twigs extending from his shorts. He wore cowboy boots and with each downward stroke the unglued heel of his left boot clacked woodenly. He picked up speed,

passing along his own back yard. The chain-link fence in his periphery

whirred passed like a river of quicksilver. The swimming pool within the

fence calmly waiting to accept him, to wash his sweat as was tradition a the end of these record breaking days. As he cleared the corner of old-man Starner’s carport he glanced toward the porch to make sure the old man was watching, and he was. He’s a fixture in the neighborhood. The old man would sit for days in his old lawn chair, rising rarely and with trouble (the nylon webbing in the seat had rotted and pulled from the aluminum rivets so that his rear-end sank low through the failing basketry) to retrieve a cold Red, White, and Blue from the fridge or to take a piss. His skin was dark and brittle. His fingernails were the color of yellowed paper, clasped around the sweating can or clawing the armrests with a rage so old and long suppressed he’s forgotten what gave rise to it, forgotten it’s name. He sips and watches the boy.

The boy aimed for the area where the dirt is deepest, grittiest. He timed it perfectly. Just as his back tire touched the dirt he slammed backward on the crank, locking his back wheel. The tire dragged serpentine. The boy reigned in the bike, shifted his weight to keep it straight and upright. He skidded passed the stop sign and into intersection before he came to rest—a hopeful sign. He circled his horse, eyeing the newest skid engraved over his previous attempts.

"Nice skid, Tex," The old man called out. He removed a Pall-Mall from the pack in his shirt pocket and lit it.

The boy acknowledged the fact, but knew he could do better.

"Yer a regular Bronc Peeler. A dead ringer fer ol’ Hopalong," the old man called after him again, but he doubted if the boy had heard of them—his own childhood heroes. The boy was already out of sight and the old man’s declaration reached him inchoate again. The fragmented wisps of a drunken slur trailing off into silence, or near silence—only the hiss and crunch of the boy’s tires kissing the asphalt.