Robert Hood
Teleplasmic Mass - Prince

Artwork Detail
This small work by Robert Hood come from a long tradition of collecting found objects and incorporating them into works of art. Hood emphasises the transformative capability of such objects, by attaching a plastic bag to the mouth of pop icon Prince. The plastic waste shapes into a fluid emission from their mouths - either as regurgitated matter or - as the title would indicate - an other-worldly ectoplasm. Jonathan Smart writes in his catalogue on Hood: "This is the big bull market after all, with consumerism characterized as the never-ending search for life improvement. Re-cycling however, is the new mantra, and Hood is good." The bags and pop icons shrink wrapped in plastic indicate waste and transformation through re-contextualisation in the work of art.
Robert Hood has developed a practice which broadly examines youth culture, and in particular the culture of the streets. A collector of ephemera and off-cuts, he is also interested in drawing parallels between the popular culture of today and the forms of high modernism. His most exhibited work to date is a collection of car windows stacked in dual recognition of their industrial waste and beauty. It was originally accompanied by photographs of 'burn outs' - or the tyre marks made by performing amateur stunts in motor vehicles on lonely back roads of Canterbury.
- Title
- Teleplasmic Mass - Prince
- Artist/creator
- Production date
- 2007
- Medium
- record cover, plastic bag and plastic wrap
- Dimensions
- 208 x 380 mm
- Credit line
- Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of the ART50 Contemporary Art Trust, 2009
- Accession no
- 2009/23/1
- Copyright
- Copying restrictions apply
- Department
- New Zealand Art
- Display status
- Not on display
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