Victor Strunk at Gallerie Zaum

Prevention for an Accident (2009) features a curious paper-mâché styled head appended voodoo-like to a found-object 'body' comprised of black-painted wood, a pair of wheels, broken glass and an inverted thermometer.  The figure appears to have been in an accident, or likely to get in one given the disharmony of the wheel heights.   The head seems to imitate some personage, the rest a narrative for its 'world,' or personality.  The head seems like a separate entity, but does carry a subtle relationship to the rest of the composition (e.g. in Flea Market Aphrodite (2009), the head is flat, like the whole).

In all, these qualities (including the overall dominant naive or primitive aesthetic) give Strunk's sculpture and his others an uncanny quality.  I am reminded of Freud's writings on this term: familiar yet unfamiliar experience that is a return of repressed infantile psychic content.  I am not sure how apropos such a Freudian interpretation would be of his work.  However, the formal features symbolize the severance of the mature ego (the head) from the rest of the body (representing the unconscious).  In any event, many such sculptures fill a portion of a sizable wall in Gallery Zaum.   They enthrall, in their uncanny way.
-A.C. Frabetti


'Victor Strunk: An Exhibition of Paintings and Sculptures Infused with Mojo'. Closing reception Saturday, January 30 from 6-9 pm. Gallerie Zaum, 811 monmouth St., Newport, Ky. 41071. 859-441-3838.

In photo: Prevention for an Accident, 2009.  Mixed media, approx. 2' height.  Photo courtesy of Gallerie Zaum.