DAVID MICHAEL BATES (American b.1952) . Nude female sculpture fragment, c.1975 . Papier mache and acrylic paint . Approximat...

Description

DAVID MICHAEL BATES (American b.1952)
Nude female sculpture fragment, c.1975
Papier mache and acrylic paint
Approximately 10in. x 9in. x 8in.
Not signed
Provenance: Don Mangus collection

This work is not a mask. Rather it is a surviving fragment of a larger papier mache figure. When storage became a concern for art student David Bates, that is, when his father made him clean out a household storage shed, David Bates had to dispose of some of his earliest sculptures. Rather than merely throw the sculptures away, David Bates disposed of them in novel ways, with a touch of dark humor, as a nod to the "conceptual art" movement. So it was, a large papier mache sculpture of Salvador Dali faced a firing line, and the event was filmed. This fragment is from a six-foot "nude " papier mache female figure that was set up in an alley way behind a Seven-Eleven convenience store and run over by Bates' car, "the white tomato." The figure was so sturdy that several passes had to be made. This fragment of the face was taken as a memento of "the happening." It was the Seventies and art students were running wild.

Keywords: Texas, contemporary, landscape, folk art, modern art, museum

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