Here are some heads. They are made from cardboard, wood glue, and
metal screws. Each head is held in place by a wood clamp. The clamps
are made in the USA; the heads are made by a Seattle sculptor, Scott
Fife. Five of the heads are human; one is of a fabulous animal, a
werewolf. This fabulous creature, however, has something wrong with it:
A human ear is embedded in its evil ear. The human in the animal is the
point from which the first meaning (the human animal) of the exhibit,
True Grit, emanates.
From this initial emanation we get heads that have the shape of Jane
Russell, Billy the Kid, Bruce Lee, John Wayne, and Geronimo. And what
is the basic meaning of this system of famous heads? What principle is
at work? With each head, the line of the American (as a culture) and
the line of the animal (as a natural force) intersect to form the
American animal. The animal force can be sexual, as with Jane Russell;
or it can be aggressive, as with Billy the Kid. But in this initial
system of meaning, Jane Russell has less to do with the other human
heads and more to do with the animal one. On the day I visited at
Platform Gallery, the werewolf was on the floor right behind the head
of Jane Russell. The proximity of the heads was much like two stars
that are so close that they exchange star stuff.
But sex and violence is the entry and not the end of these “cultural
personalities.” On one level of meaning, they are part of the
animal/human dialectic (if not dynamic), but on a deeper level they are
about the substance of a myth. The image of John Wayne is not just the
image of a person, but also the image of a myth, a form of language, a
type of narrative. In his face, there is the American hero, the bad
Indians, the Wild West, the horses, and the violent collision between a
Christian civilization and the timelessness of nature. Wayne’s face
says these things, and says them nonstop—in the inexhaustible
language of the mythic.
Against the mythic and its permanence is the impermanence of the
material. This is where Fife’s genius first makes an appearance. The
material is basic, simple, even a little messy—the face of a
sculpture has hardened trails of wood glue, holes that expose the empty
space within its head, and a variety of small screws. This messiness,
coupled with the impermanence of the cardboard, disturbs the permanence
of the mythic.
The mythic wants the honor of marble or stone. It is here to stay
and so must be made of things that are here to stay. The moment you
make it out of things that are recyclable, biodegradable, fragile,
flammable, you are devaluing or mocking the inexhaustible substance of
the myth. But the strangeness of Fife’s sculptures is that the mockery
of the mythic is not intentional. That is not what he first had in mind
with these heads. Because of the great care put into them (a process
that can be seen in the online video “Making Lionel Hampton”), Fife is
not the source of the mockery. Instead it is the mythic that mocks
itself.
It is here that the show becomes a maze of meanings. In Fife’s
hands, it is up to the mythic itself to preserve or lose dignity in the
messy but carefully prepared cheap materials. For example, with the
bust that represents the most famous Native American warrior, Geronimo,
none of the mythic force is weakened by the cardboard, glue, and
screws. And if you look through a hole by its eye, you will see small,
saintly shafts of light falling through the sacred night of its empty
head. The space within Geronimo is a sanctuary of stillness and
renewal.
None of this nobility or peace can be found within or on the surface
of the sculpture that represents John Wayne. Because his image rejects
the soft and simple materials with which it was made, his image mocks
itself. The image of Wayne feels that the legend, the tireless dignity
of Wayne, deserves much better.
This matter of mockery and nobility is convoluted even further by
the Bruce Lee sculpture, which has in it the sexual, the racial, the
noble, the mockery, the violence, the outsider, and the insider. The
head of Bruce Lee points to the next and probably final level of
meaning: the post-American, global mythic. 
