In the game of American football eleven players take the field. For those familiar with football colloquialisms, the phrase "The Twelfth Man" refers to the collectivity of the crowd and the fans’ emotional investment in the action. In the context of this art exhibition, the title "The Twelfth Man" carries connotations of spectatorship and serves as introduction into the artistic reconsideration of fandom, achievement, play, and new-age masculinity presented by Kenny George and Patrick McDonough. Seen together in this installation, the selected works challenge the marginalization of the individual fan, and re-establish recreational outlet as a valuable and creative, albeit problematic, social act. Utilizing model cars, super-soakers, pogo-sticks, stilts and video games as instruments of artistic expression, George and McDonough address alternative mythologies of play and maleness through varying degrees of agency that offer compelling recapitulations of boyhood informed by the development of a virtual, cyber world, as well as humorous respite from the mundane obstacles of adult life.
DCAC
2438 18th Street NW
Washington, DC
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