I was first introduced to David Altmejd's work in the context of which he is most often left stranded by writers - the werewolf (or often 'taxidermy') and a decidedly morbid version of the spectacle of display. Not exactly contrary to bare captions and neologisms of late, Jerry Saltz wrote of Altmejd's "werewolf parts" as associating "an immense fallen symbol", linking it to current disasters and contemporary dread[1]. Altmejd's exhibition currently at the Illingworth-Kerry gallery is quite comprehensive, with a piece representing a different phase in Altmejd's career, lacing in and out of time periods in a non-linear installation. I visited David Altmejd's exhibition in the quiet afternoon of the day following the Opening night.

The 2006 piece 'The Hunter' lay in full bloom like an abandoned maidenhead of a shipwreck a few feet inside the gallery space. Essentially a figurative sculpted piece, 'Hunter' is a cabinet of curiosities, anachronistic sci-fi technology, and interactive playground. Of the shape of the head of a bearded and moustached man (lain on his side), the sculpture invites entry (owing more to the eye than the immediate body) inside delicately jagged caves and chambers at every angle. In interviews, Altmejd has often spoken about his interest in the energy of growth in between notions of death and decay[2]; 'Hunter' reads as the remains of a body in a much more ornate role than merely decapitated abject-object, housing both fantasy and personal collection of what Altjmed has called "the potential energy of signs"[2]. The innumerable textures of the piece threaten to steal every scene, so to speak, with surfaces and intimate handling associating dried and matted hair from self-tailored wigs, sugary glazes, Technicolor-red and 'Tron'-fractal light, Victorian hair jewelry, dirty purple glitter and burnt honey, Rhino-protrusions of glass cubes with edges made soft by glowing light, 1960's Japanese film sets, pastel plastic castle toys for children, and salmon-pink flesh which picks up the satiny pale-blue of the plinth. A small, modest cabinet sits aside glass shelves inside one of the larger chambers, wherein Altmejd has placed fetish objects both contemporary and traditional; both have the quiet role of artifacts, and the heady, restrained scowl of relics.

The next room of the gallery space was made exquisitely intimate in complete darkness, wherein the reading was made that much more seductive. "The Lovers", from 2004, is a piece consisting of a large slender plinth holding the elongated, partially fused bones of an unknown creature (or creatures) of wolfish skull, its feet covered and encased by a mint-colored box. Through glass, skeletal feet and toes are visible and made kaleidoscopic by mirrors. Proliferated crystals riddle the skeleton with bejeweled lather, while smaller crystals cover the immediate boney surface in glazy pools and popped soapy bubbles. The creature's one visible eye of long lashes is closed in sleep, while its wizened remains and dark fur signal its past, associating another version of lovers from Andrei Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' (1979), a skeleton whose long red hair signaled the shock of its sleeping, embraced partner.

In the piece 'Loup Garou 2' from 2000, a taller mint-colored plinth holds various small sculptures encased in a grid of plexi-glass shelving. Here, salmon-colored flesh and black, gnarled hair cover nameless remains alongside a foot and hand, and the garish jewelry of fake flowers. The campy monster index is more visible within the bulging joints of the hand, and the sharp, curling nails of the fingers and toes. Altmejd has spoken about the werewolf as "sexy...suggestive of transformation...seductive and complex"[3], while writer Brian Sholis suggests that Altmejd's "use of the werewolf...is a morbid, Victorian-era take on the heinous..absent of any explicit violence, preferring the dread of the unknown...to a forensic analysis of cruelty"[4]. A partially hidden window on the side of the plinth reveals a snaking chamber, inside which we are allowed to see a partial wolf's head, toothy and crystalline, visible with the aid of multiple gridded mirrors; a sighting explicitly haunted by our wanting more access to what we are seeing. An electric-red stripe of light cuts through the reflection, and cuts through our reading, making a link back to 'The Hunter' and the cinematic logic of reading through multiple looking. These two pieces, which are the strongest of the exhibition, highlight what Déry calls Altmejd's fascination with "what is lost and...what is appearing"[5], as well as what can be intensely seen, possessed, and what "accosts persistent rhythms in the present"[6].

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[1] Saltz, Jerry. The Village Voice, Arts. "Modern Gothic", February 4-10, p. C85
[2] Déry, Louise. David Altmejd, Galerie de l'UQAM, 2006, p. 45.
[3] Dubé, Peter. Monstrous Energy, ESPACE 79, Spring 6-12, p. 7.
[4] Sholis, Brian, Flash Art, "David Altmejd: Hideous Progeny", March-April, p.100-102.
[5] Déry, Louise. David Altmejd, Galerie de l'UQAM, 2006, p. 59.
[6] Déry, Louise. David Altmejd, Galerie de l'UQAM, 2006, p. 17.

(link to exhibition)