The Human Condition: The Stephen and Pamela Hootkin Collection Sept. 2014 | Page 38

maybe cruel maybe not. Their impact is lessened by the title that contains the word doll. Not sweetly as in “baby” but more in the context of “voodoo.” Other Oka Doner works in the show, the assembly of Soul Catchers (1970–1979) gaze vacantly at us as Michele Oka Doner, Tattooed Doll II, (Artist's Proof), 1968–2007. Each Isichapuitu bears witness in one way or another. Virgin Bride II (1998) reflects on the condition of women, and because Velarde is a not an anthropologist, but a contemporary artist, on the condition of women today. This figure stands as a proud feminist with her blood-stained skirt held high and rudely visible, exposing the double standard in gender where in many cultures the woman still has to deliver proof of her virginity to be considered worthy of marriage when no such test exists for men. world. The role of the soul catcher has been discussed in relationship to the work of Michael Lucero. The staffs are phallic and appear carved, not objects of nature, but made by man for purposes that may be sexual. The works are variously porcelain and stoneware. But that ceramic idenitity is not played up, partly because both materials arrived long after the imagined age of Oka Doner’s artifacts. Instead they have the appearance of stone or bone, and appear formed with a knife or chisel, rubbed smooth by polishing, not softly by touch. And where a light glaze does appear, it seems not to be an In the sense of her figure baring herself (most applied surface, but rather a part of the artifact that has of the pieces carry her face and are to a degree been buffed to its shine by wear, by ardent touching. autobiographical) Velarde’s work connects to Michele Oka Doner’s Tattooed Dolls from the late sixties. They too bare themselves, but in a different and perhaps more shocking way. Doner’s tattoos are bizarre, they seem to be made under the skin; a section of skin is cut away and tattooing is revealed on the viscera underneath. On the head it seems that the needle directly touches the brain. Arms are severed. Despite the placid look on the doll’s face, violence is being done. It is unquestionably the work of a sorceress, and I speak metaphorcially. In early cultures these kind of figures would be feared but their maker even more so. The signifiers are radical, 36 though blinded by some horror encountered in the spirit Fertility is implied in many of the works we have explored. That is very much the Earth Mother’s role. And although Growing Towers (1983) by Charles Simonds has no direct human relationship, it does possess a powerful, strident sense of fecundity. Simonds is known for propogating a race of mythical little people that lived in tiny communities built painstakingly from tiny little bricks beginning forty years ago in crumbling corners of downtown Manhattan. Made of clay, they clearly mimicked the adobe Pueblo communities of New Mexico where Simonds had spent some time.