Heavy art done with a light touch

In the puzzling world of sculptor James Croak, few things are as simple as they seem.

Time lurches back and forth in the same instant, while life and death thrash it out in an apparently endless cycle. Crude earth strains to take on living form – only to hold within itself the seeds of its own extinction,

Such big ideas weigh down the talents of most artists – and they tend to numb the minds of their audiences, too.

But in an impressive retrospective mounted by the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, the Brooklyn sculptor shows how to take a deep, almost paralyzingly disturbing thought and find a way to make it run. Spend some time with his piercing "Sphinx" if you want to see how he can make you ponder.

In one glance, Croak takes you through millions of years of evolutionary history, tracing a reptilian form that mutates into a kind of bird, then into something that is only barely human. And he makes you feel the inescapable burden of the past as these previous stages of life combine to drag the emerging creature down.

Grounded by its heavy snakelike tail, this poor, misbegotten brute slithers forward on a pair of scaly, undersized legs and the fumbling feet of a water bird. Its feathery wings stretch out haplessly as they attempt to escape the pull of the earth.

Look into its struggling face and you’ll see the paradox that Croak perceives as an inevitable part of the human condition.

Though imbued with consciousness – and perhaps even a soul – this patchwork being is still condemned to wrestle vainly with the bonds of physical existence. And it does so in a way that’s both frightening and plaintive.

Such thoughtful yet penetrating images have been a hallmark of Croak’s work since his best-known piece drew world-wide attention during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Fabricated from a stuffed horse, a set of giant wings and a tricked-out Chevy Impala, this early construction– which was later destroyed – offered much more than a clever pun on the notion of horsepower.

Based on the mythical figure of Pegasus, the animal clambers through the roof of the flame-painted low rider as if it were trying to escape into the air. Long recognized as a symbol of immortality, poetic inspiration and even the urge to do battle, it serves here as a provocative way to express just what the mechanical steed has come to represent in contemporary American culture.

Still, Croak’s most critically acclaimed pieces didn’t appear until a few years later, when he began producing his famous series of "Dirt Men" from the dust he swept out of a Brooklyn gutter.

Modeled after the artist’s own likeness, these early studies drew immediate attention because of their blank earthbound forms. Many observers wrote vividly about the mundaneness of these portraits and the dark implications they had for the meaning of modern life.

Croak seems to be bluntly dispassionate, however, as he carries out his explorations of human nature.

Though molded from simple earth and a glue-like resin, these enigmatic, near-faceless figures give no more weight to notions of filth, baseness and worthlessness than they do to the ideas of fertility and growth.

And there’s no reason – despite the familiar overcoats and short-brimmed hats worn by all of these subjects – to believe they focus more on contemporary man than on the eternal human condition.

In "Dirt Man With Fish," one critic even found an image of modern existence so hollow and bleak that, as he explained it, Croak’s earthen Everyman seemed completely unaware of the school of fish swimming through his body.

Equally plausible, however – especially in light of the evolutionary themes examined in "Sphinx" – is the idea that the fish and the water they swim in are as much a part of this being as the dirt that gives him physical form. Bracing himself on a slender cane, he stumbles forward despite his mundane origin – a walking paradox who embodies the basic stuff of life as well as the stench of doom.

Indeed, Croak’s compelling stabs at what it means to be human may point to something simpler yet more profound than his critics imagine.

In one of the great and most moving images of this show, he gives us a half-dozen startlingly realistic Dirt Babies who seem to be pinned on their backs against a stark white wall.

Though bound by the nature of their short-lived bodies, these wriggling creatures still teem with the energy of new life, suggesting a cycle in which the miracle of birth is followed by the inevitability of death – then by the miracle of birth again.Similar arguments spring from some of Croak’s most recent works, which include an aged couple represented with such stunning detail and compassion that they may take viewers by surprise.

Like the babies, these naked, time-worn bodies radiate with a poignant feeling of vulnerability. But they also seem to regard the past – and look into the future – with uncommon dignity and repose.

Such heroism suggests that life itself may be a marvel – even if it doesn’t transcend death.
And that’s far better than never knowing life at all.

-, Mark St. John Erickson