I’m enthralled with the sculptures David Altmejd creates. Using frivolous objects like glitter and beads and harnessing the gentle vibration of crystals, Altmejd makes monstrous creations that look like something out of a nightmare. A face that resembles a vagina dentata, or a black hole, or something that didn’t make it through the apocalypse. In fact, all of these creatures look like they’ve been ravaged by some kind of cancer that’s eaten through them until there’s no way they could be living. I also see an outward display of our mental health crisis in these sculptures, like I’m seeing into the mind’s eye of depression, anxiety, and suicide. It’s highly disturbing. And then I think about the people who have the money to collect his work, the ones who are rapidly bringing us to the brink of extinction, and I’m even more disturbed. Do they look at these non-faces and see the chemicals they’re pumping into our minds and bodies? Do they see their own reflection? Probably not, they’re more likely seeing a line of vapid, useless, money-hoarding descendants stretching off into the distance. Check out this collection of Altmejd’s disturbingly beautiful sculptures…
