KENT ROGOWSKI - NEW
YORK. USA
1 OCTOBER 2009
Written by
ANNABEL FENN
Bears [2007]
Did you ever hear the
urban legend about the kid in the swimming pool who stuck
his ass in the drain and slowly got flipped inside out? Just
replace the boy with a bunch of ice cream coloured teddy
bears floating in the pool of a crazed scientist’s mind and
you kinda get the gist of Kent Rogowski’s Bears (2007). Come
on, we’ve all been there, turning Sooty inside-out, chewing
the feet off Barbie and giving Teddy Ruxspin a bath, but we
didn’t go as far as disembowelment, did we? In Bears
Rogowski does just that; removing the innards, reversing the
fabric and re-stuffing the bears in a way that plays with
opposites in a mischievous way; soft becomes rough, cute
becomes odd, negative becomes positive. Bears sit with
pilled-up smiles and furry scars and are actually more
adorable than those little Asian dogs with the bulging eyes
that you get the urge to kick. Looking through the works
gives your inner child a squeamish pleasure seeing these
decapitated bears, ones with plastic ball bearings still in
cellophane guts and speakers wired to some of their heads
like happy suicide bombers. The most disturbing is the honey
coloured bear with what seems to be a large green piece of
foam attached to its nostril, a malignant tumor as inseparable
as a new bff.
Bears [2007]
Rogowski is an artist who regularly revises mass-produced
consumer products in a bid to make them more individual,
more personal and self-expressive. The personality of the
bears shine through and importantly he doesn’t provide
before and after photographs like a 10 Years Younger
experiment because the toys have always been this way on the
inside; coarse, wall-eyed and with a low IQ, just like that
weird uncle you couldn’t quite trust. Any 80’s child will recognise the sky blue paunch of Wish Bear sans that dodgy
biscuit coloured stain that yours had. But regardless of its
funky smell and aged crustiness you still loved that Care Bear,
and Rogowski somehow makes them even more endearing.
Bears [2007]
www.kentrogowski.com
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