ART REVIEWS : David Mach’s Catalogue of the Absurd

The initial pleasure afforded by the sculpture of Scottish artist David Mach is that it defies belief. An entire grand piano speared on the snout of a stuffed rhino head hanging on a gallery wall? Impossible! But in fact, Mach has built his career around doing the undoable.

In recent years he’s made a life-size replica of the Parthenon out of old tires, constructed an accurate copy of a Rolls-Royce out of 15,000 books and stacked 50 tons of magazines to form five massive classical columns positioned to appear to be holding up the roof of the Brooklyn Museum. Mach’s catalogue of absurd Herculean feats is long indeed, and the guy is just 33--one trembles to contemplate what he’s building up to. The art world hasn’t seen a sculptor with this much P.T. Barnum in his blood since Christo first appeared.

For his debut exhibition in Los Angeles, installed at the Ace Gallery, Mach has come up with a wildly entertaining body of work that more than lives up to his advance press--the 23 sculptures on view are all grandly improbable. Most involve some kind of inanimate “dummy” figure (a life-size plastic gargoyle, a stuffed animal head) clutching a large consumer item (a satellite dish, a treadmill, a washer-dryer).

Seeing one of Mach’s ghoulish two-headed gargoyles hoisting an entire stereo system overhead and standing poised to smash it to the ground, one’s first reaction is to laugh. However, Mach’s work isn’t designed simply to amuse; this is a serious critique of consumerism.

Mach’s work is constructed entirely of surplus goods the artist obtains from manufacturers (the spoils of overproduction), and the pieces are all temporary installations--Mach doesn’t want to contribute to the glut of goods he opposes, so he demolishes his pieces when his exhibitions close. Like Hans Haacke--an artist of similar intelligence and integrity--Mach transforms the fruits of consumerism into an indictment of an overfed culture.

Mach bears comparison with Jeff Koons, but seems somehow less cynical than Koons because he is not selling anything (Mach’s temporary installations are unpurchasable, while Koons makes no bones about the fact that he’s eager to move as many high-priced art objects as possible). Whereas Koons’ primary interest seems to be the manipulation of the media, Mach attempts to draw our attention to the fact that society has invested inert goods with excessive importance--that in a sense, we’re killing off species that have existed for centuries in order to produce leaf blowers and TV sets.

Included here are 16 works from Mach’s animal series, three gargoyle pieces, four large animal heads made out of matchsticks, and an exquisitely lovely piece dealing with sexism that’s fashioned out of 4,000 wine bottles. Mach’s work is an unqualified success in that one’s initial encounter with it is fun--it tweaks the imagination in a peculiar way--then you find yourself contemplating its deeper implications for days afterward.

In an adjoining gallery is a series of portraits of body builder Lisa Lyon that were shot in the early ‘80s by Robert Mapplethorpe. “The pictures are a little hard, like us,” Lyon has said of this series and she’s right about that. Mapplethorpe had a rather fascistic approach to photography--all his pictures are exercises in precision and control--and, Mapplethorpe’s bloodless classicism paired with Lyon’s stern gaze and no-nonsense body makes for a pretty chilly mix.

The pictures also seem rather contrived. We see Lyon (who regards body building as a form of performance art) in haute couture, in the nude, with large game, with weapons, in lingerie, in bondage gear, in boxing gloves, in a wedding dress, in scuba gear, working out in the gym--the only thing missing is Lisa in hair curlers. What is amazing about this exhaustive series is that despite all these different set-ups, the pictures are boringly uniform. Lyon gives very little of herself to the camera, and in photo after photo she stares out at us with the same blank gaze.

Also on view are Betty Freeman’s photographs of prominent figures from the world of contemporary classical music. Hers are lively portraits, very candid and warm--Freeman clearly knows and loves this world very well.

Ace Contemporary Exhibitions , 5514 Wilshire Blvd., to Aug . 15; (213) 935-4411. Closed Sundaysand Mondays.