“If toys are quarreling amongst themselves, what hope is there now for the world?“
— XTC
In “Turtles All The Way Up,” an exhibition currently on display in the New Bedford Art Museum, there is not a single realistic rendering of a tortoise or a terrapin.
But for starters, there are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys.
The TMNT started out as comic book characters named Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello, created by Kevin Eastman and published by Mirage Studios in the 1980s.
The weapon-wielding, pizza-eating kid favorites were a powerhouse cultural phenomenon, that led to four animated series and a live-action movie, and was merchandised into Halloween costumes, tee shirts, Chef Boyardee turtle-shaped canned pasta and countless action figures and other toys.
New media artist John O’Donnell appropriates (and reconfigures) toys based on the TMNT, as well as from characters from Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers and superhero comics to skewer pop culture consumerism.
But his crude critique — and sometimes his even cruder hot-glue gunned assemblages — is buoyed by a wink-wink, nod-nod obvious affection for those playthings and the greater sensibilities they represent.
“Hyper-Real Raph” features the large scale muscular arm of the TMNT Raphael protruding from the wall and clenching a PEZ dispenser of the same character — a rather “meta” concept, that O’Donnell notes as a unique postmodern blurring of reality and fiction. But as they say in comic books — “they’re all imaginary tales.”
“Mario Incarnate: Three Lives” features three toy versions of the Super Mario Brothers character, from a plush stuffed figure of the red-capped, mustachioed plumber down to a tiny hard plastic replica that would easily fit in a Crackerjack box. Each connects back-to-belly with the next-larger figure. It references rebirth, but also Russian nesting dolls and stomach-bursting movie aliens.
Mario’s brother is also thrice represented in “Luigi’s Bootstraps.” Three versions of the character are stacked like awkward gymnasts and allude to familial and social support systems and the illusion of independence.
“Turtles All The Way Up,” the sculptural assemblage for which the exhibition is named, again uses Raphael. A highly detailed version of the red-masked turtle holds aloft a smaller version of himself, which in turn lifts a yet smaller one, and then again.
With each shrunken version, detail lessens and returns diminish, like a copy of a copy of a copy.
“Fastest Tallest Animal Ever" mounts a tiny toy giraffe to the back of a cheetah, blending desirable attributes in a nonsensical way, like those individuals who seek to be all things to all people, what O’Donnell notes as a “cobbling of truths (that) creates an unrealistic form.”
Also on display are two photographs by Chris Randall, documenting a performance by O’Donnell. “Pizza Hulk” features the performer wearing a Hulk mask and fist-shaped gloves and trying to eat a pizza, an impossible and frustrating task. To paraphrase the actor Bill Bixby in his role as David Bruce Banner (alter ego of “The Incredible Hulk” on the old television series of the same name): “You wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry!”
O’Donnell understands the adult allure of toys and it is not simply nostalgia. It is symbolism and mythology and transformation.
The ninja turtles, the action figures, the fashionista dolls, the He-Men and She-Ra’s, the rubber astronauts and shiny robots, and the wonder women and the supermen... they inspired imagination and possibility. And they still do.
“Turtles All The Way Up: Works by John O’Donnell” is on display at the New Bedford Art Museum/ArtWorks!, 608 Pleasant Street through May 26. “Swamp of Love,” a performance by O’Donnell will be presented tonight, Feb. 14 at 7 p.m.
Don Wilkinson is a painter and art critic who lives in New Bedford. Contact him at Don.Wilkinson@gmail.com. His reviews run each week in Coastin’.