Meet the Real Us

You're the one for me, Fatty. Americans get a pretty justifiable rap as the big people of the world, "big" being a nice way of saying "obese," of course. But what is our ideal body type, anyway? The old Greco-Roman model of nude discus throwers and Olympian musculature is still there — anyone see 300? But that was a hyper-stylized film based on a hyper-stylized comic book — do artists need to represent the reality or the idealized reality? Sculptor Thad Duhigg plays with the cognitive gap between ideals and ideal-types in his show Assumptions Mediated, which explores our physical identities in terms of pop-culture icons and action figures. Adam and his mate Eve, for example, are a football-trophy topper and a Barbie doll. A three-foot-tall Barbie doll. Is that what we really want? Is this who we really are? Ask yourself these questions and more at Laumeier Sculpture Park (12580 Rott Road, Sunset Hills; 314-821-1209 or www.laumeier.org); the show opens with a free public reception from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, June 8, in the indoor galleries, and Duhigg's work remains on display through Sunday, September 2.
June 8-Sept. 2