INSIDE ART

by: D. Eric Bookhardt, Gambit Weekly

 Hommage to Ste. Anne is Ersy Schwartz’ parade of bronze and wood miniature figures

Henri Float, 2004. Bronze and wood.

and floats, some arranged en masse to evoke the Mardi Gras marching parade that serves as its namesake. Others, variants of those designs, are presented individually atop stark white pedestals in the rear chamber. The little floats, and the figures that ride atop or alongside them, are very much in the spirit of the actual parade, yet are far more fastidious than the event itself. They are, in fact, very Ersy, an artist whose deftly precise touch recalls artists ranging from Bosch to Beardsly.

For instance, the Henri Float features a rather pope-like figure ensconced in an baroque domed wagon, heralding his presence with an enormous horn. All around him, similarly peculiar figures, a file of flamboyantly ambiguous forms, stalk in somnambulist fashion across the 12-foot expanse. Other floats, including one dedicated to krewe co-founder Paul Poche, carry figures that typically have the heads of animals grafted to bodies that suspiciously resemble little plastic Catholic saints recast in bronze.

The tone, of course, harks to the pagan origins of Mardi Gras, but the vision reflects a singular artist’s interpretation of a unique event. The show comes down soon after this edition hits the streets, but this, too, is in keeping with an event that is as fleeting and ephemeral as it is frenzied.