Thomas Houseago

David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2006

London, Camden Arts Centre, Strange Events Permit Themselves The Luxury of Occuring, 2007-08
London, The Saatchi Gallery, The Shape of Things to Come: New Sculpture, 2011, p. 58, illustrated in colour

Meghan Dailey, The Shape of Things to Come: New Sculpture, London 2009, pp. 47-49, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There are minor rubbing marks to the bottom, centre and top left of the sculpture and towards the back of the feet. There are two stable drying cracks to the right of centre.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

One of the most innovative and exciting young sculptors working in the US today, Thomas Houseago’s art subverts and subtly mocks various traditional, historical forms of sculpture. His extraordinary Folded Man, created in 1997, harks back to the classical purity of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, particularly with reference to the figure’s dynamic pose, reminiscent of an athlete poised at the starting line of a race. Simultaneously the piece pays an irreverent homage to the ‘primitive’ carvings and sculptures which so inspired artists such as Picasso and Braque during the early years of the twentieth century. The distortion of traditional bodily proportions, especially the thickened legs and arm, is reminiscent of the depiction of the body in Picasso’s earliest Cubist works, such as Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). In addition, Houseago also acknowledges a debt to Rodin’s sculpture: ‘… Picasso was the last really credible figurative artist of the 20th century, so any attempt to bring the physical or sensual back into sculpture goes back to him. But I think there are as many references to Rodin as Picasso in my sculpture’ (Thomas Houseago, quoted in: J. Finkel, 'Sculptor Thomas Houseago's Shape-Shifting World', Los Angeles Times, 2 January 2011).  

Folded Man stands as a remarkable tribute to Houseago’s primary artistic concerns and influences, where classical antiquity meets the formal explorations of Rodin and  Picasso, and where primitivism meets the uncompromising modernity of Cubism and Futurism. The bold, angular form of Folded Man and Houseago's intentionally crude approach to materials and form offers a playful reinterpretation of art historical styles in a sculpture imbued with mystery and intrigue.