Ancient Artifacts by Brad Tinmouth consists of a series of four product-shot style photographs depicting down-market kitsch sculptures of, respectively, a “Pharaoh,” a “Buddha,” a “Cat Goddess,” and a “Krishna” over each of which the artist has applied a layer of clear resin.
In each case, this layer of clear resin “spills out” beyond the bottom edges of the object, thus creating, not just a synthetic “sheen” to the object’s surface, but an expanded surface area to the object’s base composed of the dried resin, as well.
Due to this ejaculatory marking of his own objects, one views both:
1. Mass-produced objects which are the synthetic versions of once-unique objects (appropriated kitsch gods).
2. As well as a series of unique objects in their own right (the serial mutations of appropriated kitsch gods).
Each work’s totemic power resides here, then, not in either (1.) nor in (2.), but rather in the oscillation between (1.) and (2.) from original to version to original to version and back again.
Tags: ancient artifacts, aura, brad tinmouth, digital, gods, kitsch, object, reproduction, resin, simulacra, simulacrum, simulations, totems, unique, versions