Artist-in-Residence AGNS Yarmouth Anselm Kiefer - Art Gallery of ...

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Artist in Residence
A horse is a horse of course,
unless that horse is David Harper’s horse…
You don’t need to know the story of The Last
to Win to be struck by its beauty. The life size
horse is immediate, breathtaking, and
touchable. one can almost catch a glimpse
of muscles twitching under skin or feel
its soft, hot breath. However, with closer
scrutiny, its stitched seams and glass eyes
betray that beauty, revealing a carefully
constructed fiction.
This is where the story begins for this horse.
with his work, David R. Harper domesticates
and dissects the natural world. He brings
the outside world in as though through an
open bedroom window. Bird, squirrel, and
chipmunk creep in to join owl, beaver and
black bear. Through sculpture and embroidery
Harper also brings the inside out: he
shaves and peels back protective coverings to
reveal softly stitched bones and organs. with
a sense of reverence and care, he finds ways to
celebrate the spirit of the animals he recreates.
Narrative creeps into Harper’s practice as he
weaves stories and histories for his animals.
The story is clear for the birds, mice, raccoons,
and many other animals that inhabit
the half-sized camping trailer he made for his
installation When the rain Comes. In impish
pairs, these creatures await the flood, be it
Biblical or the unrelenting encroachment
of suburban sprawl on their once wild land.
His awareness of the delicate balance
between the natural world and human
intervention adds to this narrative.
JOURNAL Spring & Summer 2009
In Harper’s work, his passion for the wild
unites synergistically with a keen interest in
technique. His sculptures, even those small
in scale, have weight and presence. His vision
for The Last to Win was huge, both lofty and
ambitious: a full-scale horse, crafted in the
modest Artist-in-Residence studio at the Art
Gallery of Nova Scotia, appropriately during
the run of a Joe fafard retrospective. Harper’s
desire to create a horse of this stature predates
the AGNS residency, although creating
it within that context gave Harper license
for a larger scale. Technique is one layer to
a multilayered process. Visitors could just as
easily have found Harper in the studio reading
books on Victorian pet-keeping practices
as they would have found him embroidering
intricate patterns on cowhide.
The background research is part of what
makes this sculpture so striking. David
Harper’s inspiration for this work came out
of his examination of four famous horses:
Napoleon’s Vizir, Roy Roger’s Trigger, Comanche,
a cavalry survivor of The Battle of Little
Bighorn, and Guinness world record holder
for largest horse, The General. each horse has
been mounted for display in museums. They
stand as legendary specimens because of
the men who rode and owned them.
The Last to Win has no story—he’s not a
real horse, of course, but rather a sculpted
fabrication. Harper has stitched together
cowhide on a styrofoam form, glued glass
eyes, styled synthetic hair, and moulded
porcelain hooves to create a glorious fiction.
Harper then branded the beast with his own
stitched mark. His brand is luxurious: a Victorian
crest that speaks of power, masculinity
and delicacy in one sweeping statement. The
chosen mark tells a story for this animal and
sets it apart from its famous predecessors.
This hybrid creature is offered up like a
trophy, its beautiful embroidered claiming
certain triumph.
As a work of art, The Last to Win embodies
choices and suggests potential meaning.
Harper’s embroidery on an identifiably
tamed and trained horse offers a vision that
compels the viewer to ask how this beast fits
into the canon of famous equines. what is
the story, or who is the human, that makes
this animal worth preserving? Harper has
created a metaphorical link to Vizir, Trigger,
Comanche, and The General. In his stitched
brand there lies a created myth. As a fabrication,
this sculpture is laid bare for the ersatz
reality it is, allowing us to reflect on the ways
in which meanings and histories can be
developed and invented over time for any
given object.
The result is a sign, a symbol, and a work that
both is and isn’t, of course, just a horse. �
Sarah fillmore
Acting Chief Curator
and Curator of exhibitions
The Last to Win will be on view during our Artist in
Residence Exhibition Fall 2009. Check our website
for details.