David Hevel: Marx & Zavattero

In 1966 JOHN LENNON shocked fans with his pronouncement the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” Forty-odd years later, Lennon has attained a martyred status of his own, and the Beatles music remains inextricably linked in our culture – millions finding the tunes catchier than scripture.

Bay area artist David Hevel’s recent show, “Beautiful, Dirty, Dirty, Rich” addresses precisely the issue of elevation of celebrities to the status of religious icons. Hevel does not seem to begrudge the famous their fifteen minutes of godliness, particularly, but his satiric shrines clearly suggest that our collective genuflection to stardom has gotten a bit out of hand.

Hevel employs a kitschy, extravagant use of materials of floral display – artificial leaves and flowers, along with an assortment of baubles and beads – as well as a variety of synthetic birds and full-scale taxidermy forms standing in for assorted pop icons. With a retro color scheme of black and pink, the installation suggests some punky, tropic designer paradise gone awry.

The playful Spring, Summer, Fall & Winter Collections consisting of fourteen porcelain monkeys and handmade couture, references ceramic collectables found in the artist’s boyhood home. These simian Hummels’ outlandish garb ranges in hue from electric blue to devil-red and incorporates fabric, sequins, fake flowers, cocktail umbrellas and other assorted flotsam – they’re ready for the runway. Nearby, The Adoration of Brad Pitt features a supplicating black baboon immersed in the wintry trappings – silver frosted leaves, flocked pine boughs and crystal baubles.

A disgraced investment tycoon motivates the edgiest work in the show: Bernie Madoff You’re a Giant Prick. Glazed in dark auto body paint, a wall-mounted, life sized rhinoceros head tilts at a rakish angle as snot oozes nonchalantly from it’s deep black nostrils.

Hevel’s passion for banality, the god-awful ticky-tacky materials and the tabloid sensationalism which informs his sculpture, puts him in the same camp, so to speak as bad boy Jeff Koons. He also shares a scavenging aesthetic with Chicago-based Nick Cave and his baroque assemblaged “soundsuits.”

Heaven Can’t Wait (Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett) serves up the artist at his melancholic best. Deer taxidermy forms become, with the addition of spiraling horns and ostrich feather wings, saintly unicorns. Hevel also includes three memorable text based pieces in epoxy and enamel on wood; the title of the show, “Beautiful, Dirty, Dirty, Rich” borrowed form pokerfaced Lady Gaga, as well as “Pretty Much Like Jesus” and “God, Like, Like OMG,” the latter two anonymous quotes gleaned from the Internet reflecting shared moments of confused grief over the beleaguered Jackson’s passing.

Hevel’s artist statement references the “cultural recycling” of Nicolas Bourriaud. Hevel, who appropriates bits of popular culture, has, appropriately enough, also just completed a residency at the San Francisco dump – Norcal Waste Systems recycling center. This experience, and the culminating exhibition, “This Sugar is Raw” reflects a looser, more experimental and environmentally conscious side of the artist. It will be interesting to see where Hevel, tongue no cheek, will take his irreverent work.

-- Barbara Morris

Reprinted from Artillery magazine, November/December 2009, p. 50, 52.