At Mass MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, two cavernous dim galleries are strewn with dozens of eerie assemblages that conjure a wonderland of death. Composed of plaster, wood, fabric, and prefabricated objects, the predominantly white sculptural works in Marc Swanson’s exhibition “A Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco” draw on a limited lexicon of household items and architectural features—framed photographs, tables, stairs, drapes, mirrors, and lighting fixtures—juxtaposed with elements invoking nature and the outdoors, from deer dummies to branches, rocks, and icicles. As if exploring a haunted house, viewers wander through the shadowy galleries, catching sight of a pietà featuring a Grim Reaper cradling a deer, a platform for a go-go dancer embellished with fabrics draped from branches, and a hanging, gently rotating chain clustered with shimmering antlers. The works all riff on each other yet are unique, and seem curiously in a state of deterioration, despite the material excess. Assortments of photographs recur throughout the show, set in the kind of utilitarian metal frame found in any middle-class living room or positioned in rhinestone-studded wall mosaics; they present generic scenes of nature (wintry waterfalls, moonlit skies, a ray of light bursting through a forest), historical snapshots of queer people partying, and some recognizable pop-cultural imagery such as Bruce Byron as the motorcycle hunk in Kenneth Anger’s film Scorpio Rising (1963). A few video works contributing additional natural imagery are embedded in the sculptures and reliefs.

Η συνέχεια εδώ.