The Warm Up

Pestäule


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In this final gallery, the thin, red, vinyl line continues along the perimeter. At the center of the gallery stands an elaborate vertical monument standing about 7 feet or 2 meters tall and surrounded, at its base, by neatly laid white sand bags that form a circle. The monument, combining religious and protest imagery, consists of a tall, wide, flat, column, curved inward around an elaborate scene made of fragile materials such as papier-mâché, bandages, polystyrene foam, chicken wire, and plaster of paris. The scene swells up on a craggy, foamy mountain with protruding, tambourine-like disks and large spheres.
In the scene, a baby-size, winged cherub hovers near the top of the column and drives a long spear into a fully inverted, human figure with their arms and legs flailing and their back arched. The figure, representing a demon, wears casual pants and a long sleeve t-shirt.
Beside the demon, slightly higher on the mountain of shapes but below the hovering cherub, sits a figure in a medical mask and casual pants, a long-sleeve t-shirt, and shoes. The seated figure holds a large, blank white protest sign that nearly touches the ceiling, extending above the curved column, and rests one foot on a large, protruding sphere about the size of a beach ball.
The monument is predominately a cold white that verges on an icy purple, with abundant strokes of navy blue that suggest shadows and add dimension, like a three-dimensional graphite drawing. A flat, bright yellow shape similar to a torso with large, padded shoulders and topped by a basketball-sized sphere, looms over the scene, part of the curved column like the back of a throne and popping against its white and navy blue surroundings.
Circle the monument, and a cluster of large spheres and piles of tambourine-like discs protrude from its otherwise smooth, curved back. At one point, a bare foot protrudes. While, like on the rest of the monument, white predominates, the back of the curved column features abundant swaths and splashes of bright yellow and navy blue. Foamy shapes gather at the base, touching the sandbags.
Standing in front of the monument, the left wall of the gallery features a protruding row of white spheres all large but varied in size. While one sphere, about the size of a beach ball, is single, the others are clustered together like conjoined bubbles or bulbous clouds.
To hear more from the artist on this work, scroll down the next audio track.
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The Warm UpBy MoMA PS1

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