Kloset Kase Blog

Brought to us by the Lazarides Galleries which are responsible for bringing forth works from the likes of Banksy, Jonathan Yeo, BLU, JR, Antony Micallef, Conor Harrington, etc. Embellishing us with works which go against the categorization of graffiti and rather identifying themselves as the “Outsiders” of the Art Brut Movement-whose many artists were never formally trained. Above, Mark Jenkings uses his own handed-down clothes on his dummies and creates them using a dry casting process in wrapping himself in packing tape. In placing his own semblance, “simulacra”(as he calls it) in public, he performs his own outer body experience. In his Grover sculpture he self-exorcises the deep dark truthful mirror of the existing reality our eyes would rather gloss over. That is, unless it’s Grover from Sesame Street, which makes it funnier to look at. Mark drives home his tempering use of beloved childhood Sesame Street characters as a medium whereby the viewer is enabled to forge a bond, with what would otherwise make him/her feel uncomfortable. I suppose Grover’s sculpture comments on the hysterically-perpetual social plague of the unwanted, faceless homeless. Is it easier to process the truth when we associate an alcoholic, homeless Grover to our warm fuzzy feelings of childhood blissful ignorance and hey sunny days everything’s okay?! It’s absurd to see Grover in such a vulgar display of drunken stupor. I did have a whole lotta fun taking pictures of a not so confident looking, somewhat fucked up Grover. And I can’t help becoming desensitized for every homeless heroin junkie I walk by in the lower east side. Sometimes I’ll stop and give a buck or two so he/she can feed the unfortunate, starving, nomadic pup. I hate when they use their dogs as decoys to pan handle more money, but it works. Check out Bert, sweet. Dixie