Six-channel silent video loop, 20:00, 2024

Frieze II originated as a response to Paul McCarthy’s Plaster Your Head and One Arm into a Wall, 1973. To create each channel, Locke hammered holes in a single sheet of drywall attached to an armature in order to assume a pose inspired by the frieze in the base of the Pergamon Altar, a masterpiece of ancient Greek art depicting battles between the Olympians and the Giants that resides at the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin. An assistant plastered Locke into wall, started the camera, and Locke remained in position for approximately twenty minutes (plaster of paris generally takes 10 – 20 minutes to harden). Over the course of a number of days at the gallery Locke performed this action eight times. Frieze 2 is presented in this exhibition as a six-channel, silent, color video installation on an array of monitors displayed on the exact wall that supported the armature on which it was created. The work is a feat of stillness, a rumination on the legacy of disparate strands of art history, and a stunning continuation of the artist’s exploration of the body as sculptural material. — Grant Wahlquist