Juxtapoz Magazine - Sculptor Joshua Levine unleashes unNATURAL HISTORY @ Tarryn Teresa Gallery, Los Angeles

Sculptor Joshua Levine unleashes unNATURAL HISTORY @ Tarryn Teresa Gallery, Los Angeles
Friday September 11, 2009

Upon entering Los Angeles based sculptor Joshua Levine’s solo show at Tarryn Teresa Gallery, unNATURAL HISTORY, you step into the possible not-to-distant future of what animals may become. You are greeted by the front door by his Sour Diesels, a litter of not quite right small animals, inspired by and resembling the purse dog accessories of the Hollywood celebratarts. These strangely odd, but sort of cute, animals are standing there waiting and staring at you as you enter the exhibition. The show looks like a possible hunting trophy room or natural history display that could be twenty years out. Levine infuses his creations with multiple eyes and ears, not usually found in nature. He looks at how current technology and scientific advances are changing and affecting the world we live in. Expressing the possibilities of what may be in our future are we become more and more the masters of the genome and are able to splice one animal with another. The idea that we will be able to “design” our own pets and stock our zoos and hunting preserves with these unique new animals. The work both celebrates and warns about these new possible species. Levine states that his work does not pass any judgments on whether these new species and our mastery over them is either good or bad, he is just pointing out the possibilities.