MAX HEIGES
BUFF
February 12th - March 27th, 2021
For a checklist of the exhibition click HERE
I’m never going to be big enough - the resounding silent power of Max Heiges’ 60+ hand-made dumbbells (some of which are sitting on his hand-welded barbell racks), installed in what could be a soviet locker room or a 1980s dystopian Miami gym aptly named Deadlift - echoes of performative ruggedness yearning to break free. The weights are all torch cut out of inch thick (sometimes thicker) mild steel - some have been brought down to a clean polish, some have been left in their raw steely state, some have been finished and painted in a candy land palette that speaks to the delusion of contemporary virility.
Stay buff, stay cool. Be as strong as steel, maintain a steely constitution. Eat like a man. Lift like a beast. Pump Iron. Pump it up. Pump your girl. Do your reps, stay on the program.
Symbols of our time, some of boyhood, some of male adolescence - and some of rock hard manhood - make the barbells into something altogether new: dinosaurs, tractor, a buff arm, dollar sign, tits, a cut out of New Jersey (THE lifting state), an anvil, a steak, an alien head, a male member and it’s accompanying set, marijuana leaf, chicken legs - are dotted by the apparent aesthetic vulnerability of a shooting star, some hearts, a smiley face, apples and bananas. (There were many moments when sharing a studio with Heiges I would see these sculptures in process and think, “He is balls to the walls”)
Big dawgs gotta eat (lean protein only).
You gotta eat big to get big, you gotta work hard to play hard.
These tokens of prosaic manhood, symbols that are as readily familiar as an emoji or something you might see on a t-shirt accompanying a bad english translation (“Wish You Were Beer”) - make up a vernacular that speaks through this body of work. What kind of gym is this? Are we all in on this joke? This is the real locker room talk: one which is audibly silent but traded in emblems and tokens that get men excited about their power - about their bodies, and about their strength.
No Pain, No Gain. Pedal to the Metal.
What is left to say about the state of manhood in 2021? Are there any original opinions left, other than those who mirror the Camille Paglia perspective (“The erection is the last gasp of modern manhood”), or those who want to expound on the extra softness needed to extradite masculinity from the patriarchy itself?
What can we make of the artist who makes gym equipment something meaningful, something beautiful? Heiges invites us to be in on the ultimate locker room talk. Come in, the metal beckons us, I might be heavy but I’m nice to look at. The metal has more secrets to tell than just the burden of its weight in gravity.
-Rachel Libeskind
