Donald Keys

If I were a narrative artist, I would prattle on about posthumanism, and then indoctrinate you with piffle like: the empty shell, soulless figure from history, who lacks inner life, meaning, or significance. The proletariat being reduced to a mere physical presence, devoid of emotion, personality, and purpose—simply a puppet. But that’s not what I’m about. So… seeing I’m not a narrative artist, and don’t wish to educate you about anything, the series of mannequin works was born from a far simpler idea.

An artist friend of mine asked, “What’s the point of mannequins?” My immediate thought was there is no point. I suggested that mannequins were made for artists who had no friends willing to sit for them. However the idea played on my mind, after all, the mannequin has been around for hundreds of years—they must be useful for something.

So began my experimentation of placing mannequins into works by past masters. Being pleased with the result, the next step was to make the mannequin the hero of some original contemporary images. Then the concept was extended to sculpture. The “Mannequin Masquerades” exhibition is an exploration of the mannequin who masquerades for pure entertainment. My only hope is that some of these works may raise a smile.