MAX HEIGES: “...and the horse you rode in on”

Marvin Gardens is pleased to announce the opening of “...and the horse you rode in on,” a solo exhibition consisting of a single monumental steel sculpture by Max Heiges, inaugurating the gallery’s new outdoor yard space. Heiges presents an ambitious sculptural work of an abstracted horse figure. The sheer size calls to memory the myth of the Trojan Horse, albeit here with a more skeletal nature. The minimal visual language is a result of subtle modification of found materials and the engineering required to fasten the various elements together. One is reminded of folk metal-work seen from yards at countryside homes and muffler shops, however in addition to its sheer size, the minimal form distances it slightly from these rhyming art forms. Raw surfaces are preserved and enriched. Bondo has been applied and sanded beneath the legs, calling to mind Richard Prince’s “Hoods”, and indeed here similarly the visual record of labor as patching, fixing, and finishing, is celebrated. The obvious humor embedded in the title reverberates in layers through the aforementioned folk humor, while also being used to parse layers of sincerity within the sheer joy of working with steel. It’s important to note the sculpture is a direct reference to the “saw horse” a common and necessary tool across many construction and craft disciplines. Similarly ubiquitous, mechanical joinery such as bolting and welding are perhaps not as simple as they seem considering the engineering at this scale. Just as the language of basic manufactured steel volumes and the humor implied under the surface are much more culturally nuanced than at first glide.