Sculptures embody a unique authenticity. Unlike paintings, which depict something else, sculptures are their own reality, explained artist David Altmejd at the recent New York preview for his White Cube show "The Serpent." At 50, Altmejd is known for pushing the limits of the medium: His practice sits on the knife’s edge of grotesque beauty. Even among the most radical contemporary sculptors, the Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based artist’s realism-meets-goth-sci-fi style sets him on a singular plane. Using everything from clay, foam, glitter, crystal, and beads to synthetic or human hair, the artwork is at once enthralling and ghoulish.  

But the namesake sculpture and centerpiece of Altmejd’s new exhibition, The Serpent, takes it to the next level. His most impressive work yet, a spectacular concatenation of mystical, decayed human heads slither along White Cube’s first floor through April 19. CULTURED's New York Arts Editor Jacoba Urist sat down with Altmejd to discuss the monumental piece, how the artist learned to surrender complete control to his creations, and why he needs a conduit to the underworld.  

CULTURED: You explained at the preview that viewers could read The Serpent back to front or front to back. What do you mean?

David Altmejd: As I made The Serpent, I didn’t know where it was going. I didn’t have any idea of the narrative. I just wanted to make a serpent made of a series of heads. I worked very intuitively and was connected to the materials I used. But then afterwards, I stepped back and I saw that there were different types of narratives. The different heads seem to be transforming subtly, each one from the other. It depends on if you start trying to read the narrative from the head of the serpent going towards the back, or if you do it the other way around—which is fair enough, because the tail of the serpent represents the origin, and then the heads multiply in the direction the serpent is going. The head that’s at the top of that upward slope, at the top of the summit, is reminiscent of a Christ figure. It’s looking up in connection with a higher realm. I see this as a spiritual rise or awakening.

CULTURED: Did you work from drawings or a computer program to construct The Serpent?

Altmejd: The sculpture took several months. The basis of building this piece is that I made casts of heads and combined them, one after the other. I used an epoxy material that is light because I know at the end, the accumulations of heads would be so large that if I used a heavy material, it would be impossible to transport or manipulate. I tried a few times to predetermine the path of the serpent. Sometimes at night when I was home from the studio, I would make sketches to get ready for the next day. But every time I went back into the studio and started working, the material itself didn’t care one bit about my plan. It wanted to decide—and that is the whole idea. The material contains the intelligence and the will and the drive to determine its own shape. When I started The Serpent, I knew that it was going to be extremely chaotic, unpredictable, surprising, and scary, but I had no idea how it would end up looking.

CULTURED: Is that how you feel about all of your sculptures—that you aren’t dictating the process as much as the materials are?

Altmejd: For the longest time, perhaps the first two decades of being an artist, I thought that I was responsible for every choice I made. But at one point, I was working on a sculpture and really felt that I was fighting with it. There was combat: I wanted it to be a certain way, but I became aware that it so wanted to go in a different direction. It made my life hell. I realized I can’t fight against it, because its will is way too strong. And I can’t control chaos.

CULTURED: Do you think your artwork is better now that you’ve surrendered control?

Altmejd: It is more meaningful in a certain way, because the work is really what it wants to be. My ego is not involved in trying to overly edit and control everything. I don’t have a child, but I think of the metaphor of imposing my will on my child. I would imagine that would be pretty difficult, if that child feels something else. In the past, even if I thought I was responsible for the choices I made, that was just an illusion. My style has always been very much about unpredictability and being excited about mistakes. I’m not a perfectionist. The work was always coming from another dimension, I just didn't know that. Now I do. I’m much more relaxed. I’m okay with being embarrassed. I’m okay with going too far. I’m just helping the object decide its own shape—it’s not me.

CULTURED: That reminds me of another thing you said at the opening. You described the images of the rabbit in this work as representing a special kind of trickster who helps someone access the subconscious?

Altmejd: The rabbit came about intuitively. When I started making sculptures of rabbits a few years ago, it was because I like making little drawings on the surface of my sculptures. But there was never enough space on a bust or head, because I could only draw on the cheeks or small spaces. I started making sculptures of rabbits with huge ears to enable me to make bigger drawings on them. Afterward—I think it was after a mushroom trip or whatever—I realized that the rabbit is a spirit that has helped me go inside the unconscious as a kind of guide.

The rabbit is the part of me that enables me to switch from the real world to the underworld, like in Alice in Wonderland. The rabbit shows the way to Alice, through the hole where she accesses her own subconscious. As an artist, this aspect is one of the most important partners that I have. It enables me to go deep, deep, deep where it’s really dark and explore, and still be able to find my way out. The rabbit is able to hide in its hole and navigate this really sophisticated network of channels it knows by heart. Then, when it wants to, it’s able to come back to the surface. But when it’s outside, it needs to be really careful of predators, which is like me as an artist.

CULTURED: Why is emerging from "underground," or your studio, making art challenging?

Altmejd: When I need to go into the world, that’s where I'm really more cautious and afraid of everything. So I go back into my hole really often. It’s not necessarily a good thing. I’m trying to balance that in my life. I need to come out of my hole sometimes. Art is not the only thing that’s important. There are many other aspects to life that need to be experienced. If I rely too much on my comfort in the underworld, it becomes problematic.