Jonathan Seliger (1955), Lacquered Bronze Sculpture “gucci”

Jonathan SELIGER (1955), lacquered bronze sculpture “Gucci” braided metal rope, signed and numbered under the base, A 72 x 91 x 31 cm (some scratches) Jonathan Seliger makes meticulous reproductions/interpretations of mass-produced everyday consumer objects and containers. Departing here from his signature painted canvas constructions to explore fabrications in aluminum, bronze, and stainless steel, sprayed with automotive enamels, he takes the once-popular slogan “Super Size It” to the extreme by presenting larger-than-life versions of a milk carton and a Gucci bag, both over 2.40 m tall, as well as an unfolded Chinese takeout wall box. Seliger draws his visual vocabulary from precedents in contemporary and 20th-century art history, combining notions of scale, seriality, and fabrication common to Minimalism with the content of Pop Art, and an attention to detail and surface quality comparable to that of West Coast practitioners of finish fetishism. His use of language—the naming of works and exhibition titles, for example—adds yet other dimensions to the work, an element of humor or social critique.