David Altmejd, Untitled 2 (Bodybuilders)

2011

David Altmejd frequently produces large-scale anthropomorphic figures that transform their subjects through modes of reconfiguring anatomical components into recognizable but altered forms. In this sculpture, a larger-than-life-sized figure is composed of plaster casts of the artist’s hands. The hands appear to both shape and disfigure the body’s substance. Rather than solely referring to bodybuilders who develop muscles through exercise, the artist references the sculpture’s formation of its own body through the aggregation of physical material.