Anatomy of an Artwork: Carrie Dedon on Howard Kottler's SLOTS

In the last years of his life, Howard Kottler made a series of multifaceted ceramic works stylized as cubist sculptures. Often modeled on mass-reproduced knickknacks and frequently using dogs as stand-ins for human portraiture, he recast these “low art” subjects in the language of art history, coating them in faux gold or silver leaf to suggest a level of opulence and glamor that remains only surface-deep.
Like many of Kottler’s works from this period, "SLOTS" (1987) holds subversive messages below its high-gloss surface, opening to reveal scenes and double-entendre jokes that are hidden from the viewer: lifting the ears reveals a drill bit that transforms into a human hand, seemingly controlling the inner mind of the dog, and hidden in the jaws is a smaller terrier dog staring down a surreal passageway evocative of a Giorgio de Chirico painting. This process of revelation and visual doubletalk suggests a hidden inner life, a subject that particularly interested Kottler as a gay man.
Watch this video to learn more about "SLOTS" from Carrie Dedon, SAM Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and see it on view now in "Poke in the Eye: Art of the West Coast Counterculture" at SAM!
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POKE IN THE EYE: ART OF THE WEST COAST COUNTERCULTURE
Jun 21 - Sep 2 2024
Seattle Art Museum
visitsam.org/pokeintheeye

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i paid for this...sad.