David Harper's stallion begs for closer inspection

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The Last to Win by David R. Harper
Stride Gallery
Friday, April 3 - Saturday, May 9

More in: Visual Arts

It’s not common to see taxidermy put to use on horses. Only the legendary greats have been preserved in museums for their adoring fans: Napoleon’s horse Le Vizir, Roy Rogers’ Trigger, the world’s biggest horse General and Captain Keogh’s Comanche. Emerging Halifax artist David Harper has decided to pay tribute to this bizarre human behaviour with his piece The Last to Win at Stride Gallery.

As objects in museums, the mounted skin of a once-living animal transports the viewer to a different time and place. The aura of the physical relic is the main pull for the use of taxidermy in tributary monuments. In the particular case of Harper’s stallion, which is zero per cent real horse, The Last to Win may refer to the Canadian racehorse Nijinsky II, who was the last to win the U.K. Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. Other than that, this horse is an anonymous lifelike creature, posing motionless in the centre of a gallery.

Standing proud but questioningly with his head tilted, this “beautiful beast” (Harper’s words), bares one mark as a clue to his story. On the glimmering dark brown hide of its hindquarters, an elaborate design evokes the esthetics of 19th-century European high society. Hand-embroidered with white floss, a nude Rubenesque lady surrounded by a filigree of laurels seems more fitted to a Victorian tea advertisement than the typically crude iron branding on a horse’s rump. This juxtaposition of horse and handcrafted decoration could be a reference to the popular use of horse iconography in early British painting and visual culture, or the detail on a cowboy shirt or saddle.

Upon closer inspection, you can see the hide is stitched together from smaller pieces to fit the immaculately muscled Styrofoam taxidermy form underneath. Although there was no use of horse parts anywhere in the piece (the purchased hides are from cows), the feel of “horseness” is still there. This adds an uncomfortable sympathy to the piece — you can’t help but feel what it would be like to have a needle drawn through your own skin. Add this to the idea of the animal’s body being opened up. Perhaps necessary to the process, the stitching all over the body nevertheless interrupts the pleasant illusion of a real horse, and has the effect of subverting any complacency or blamelessness towards animal trophies and taxidermy.

Underlying this allusion to bodily violence, there are themes of a more covert violence done to animals for the sake of human pleasure. Both the branding and mounting of animal bodies assume an ownership over the identity and life of animals. On the other hand, the admiration of the majestic beauty and power of animals fits somewhere into the equation. Harper is aware of the complexities of the human-animal relationship. “It’s a relationship that cannot be defined,” he says. “Better to ask the animals themselves.” This statement reveals the artist’s intention of returning the power of the gaze to the animal. We often expect that it is one-sided — humans do the looking without the participation of the animal. Much of contemporary art’s botched taxidermy aims to challenge these anthropocentric values.

Craftsmanship is key to Harper’s mentality as an artist, and he seems to love nothing more than spending hours upon hours with needle and embroidery thread in his studio. Over the months it takes to make a piece like The Last to Win, with a pelt of animal fur draped on his lap, Harper sees his body becoming a part of the piece and the piece a part of his body. Besides the enthralling look of the finished product, the beauty of the piece rests in its contradiction and openness. The piece makes us aware of the seemingly innocent acts of devotion and veneration of the horse in its decorated flanks, and the subtly violent and controlling acts of marking, branding, owning and training of animals. Harper aligns both activities within the same sphere of cultural creation and leaves the question of ethics versus esthetics open to the viewer. It is a political piece that finds strength in ambiguity.