Franz Xaver Messerschmidt Character Heads

October 18, 2010 1:07 PM

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt Character Heads. [PDF]

Striking in detail and power, expressiveness, emotion, and over all weirdness.

(Almost has a Koons thing going in this one.)

No peeking, but if the work is unfamiliar, have a quick guess as to when he doing his thing.

More here, here, here. Also a video.

Previously, but it's been a while and a bunch of them are currently on display at the Neue Gallerie in New York, so - worth a revisit.

posted by IndigoJones (11 comments total)

(That is to say, guess before hitting "the doing his thing" link
posted by IndigoJones at 1:08 PM on October 18, 2010

Constipated man, taking a shit.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:28 PM on October 18, 2010

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt Character Heads...
His name is my name, too!!
And whenever we go out
The people always shout
"THERE GOES FRANZ XAVER MESSERSCHMIDT CHARACTER HEADS" DA DA DA DA da da da

For the record I really like these, but the title of this post makes me want to sing
posted by the painkiller at 1:40 PM on October 18, 2010 [6 favorites]

taking a dump sounds better than taking a shhhh it.
posted by tustinrick at 2:02 PM on October 18, 2010

These things look so modern. It's hard to describe exactly... I guess it's the funny/human/candid nature of the expressions on the faces.
posted by codacorolla at 2:16 PM on October 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

I remember reading about him in Born Under Saturn years ago and being completely fascinated by this guy practicing his faces, cataloging them in sculpture, all to ward off the spirits that were chasing him. I don't think I remember anything else from that book. This struck as a fun movie yet to be made. Not a documentary, but an odd horror film. Great collection of links.
posted by kingfisher, his musclebound cat at 2:53 PM on October 18, 2010

Dang, I use to write HTML for a living and screw up a simple href: Born Under Saturn
posted by kingfisher, his musclebound cat at 2:54 PM on October 18, 2010

His work is really breathtaking to see in person - to walk around the sculpture and see how well he understood the underlying anatomy of his own head and neck. You can see the tension all the way around and through, and everything is rendered masterfully.
posted by louche mustachio at 5:16 PM on October 18, 2010

New York Review of Books also did a write up on this.
posted by SouthCNorthNY at 6:51 PM on October 18, 2010

These are beautiful; capturing the essence of these strong emotions (in 3-D even!) that, in realtime, would pass quickly or are otherwise hard to capture -- and never mind that he did it in pre-photographic times! Thanks for introducing me.
posted by not_on_display at 10:39 PM on October 18, 2010

Here's another video
posted by crunchland at 7:35 PM on October 26, 2010