Mask with Base
Mask with Base, 2017
Thomas Houseago (1972- )
Bronze
Fine Art Ordinance Obligation
Thomas Houseago was born in Leeds, England, and moved to Los Angeles after living in Amsterdam and Brussels. His work at once emulates and parodies modern figurative art, especially sculpture. This mask-like piece, for instance, takes off on everyone from Picasso to Baselitz and Basquiat, questioning their historical pretenses even while illuminating their aesthetic strengths through its own. Houseago also mocks the enduring search for the exotic by mounting its derelict face on some sort of crozier in the form of an Asian temple. The eclecticism of both form and reference is almost hilarious, but Houseago makes sense of it.