Mark Havens' Monster Factory review

AC: You don’t have any goals
JB: Oh but I do.
AC: Yeah:
JB: I wanna be just like you. I figure all I need is a lobotomy and some tights.
BJ: You wear tights?
AC: No I don’t wear tights. I wear the required uniform.
BJ: Tights.
AC: Shut up. --The Breakfast Club, 1986


With all pun-based kidding aside, wrestling is a hard sport to pin down. Oscillating between theatrical ridiculousness and skillful seriousness, the physical prowess of each player may garner respect but execution and performance often eliminate any trace of said gravitas. A visit to Mark Havens’ Monster Factory presents for our viewing pleasure the world of Amateur-Pro Wrestling, and the tumult between amusement and appreciation found therein.

A quick spin around Havens’ presentation of Monster Factory at Gravy Studios (a Philadelphia-based photography collective) immediately stirred a range of reactions and emotions, from pitying sadness to a scoffing elitism (shamefully) onward to pure craft-based appreciation. Fashioned using government grade printing techniques (with the aid of a defense contractor in the Midwest), a more trophy-like surface had been Havens' original vision but the medium proved difficult and ultimately too kitschy to favor over optimal image quality. This sacrifice of foot-noteworthy relevance has done Monster Factory a great service; each anodized gold aluminum plate carries the stark and smudgy with equal capacity. The tactile teeth the coarse arena rope stands in fine relief against the softened bronze bodies in motion, inducing an almost emphatic tangibility: one can almost feel the rope cutting into his/her own skin.

It is Havens’ sensibility and choice of material that allows Monster Factory to ascend beyond the sort of voyeurism which often accompanies both still and moving images of this variety. When a window into a new world is forged, the attention and awareness created by this opportunity is not always gilt-edged and golden; judgment creeps in through the cracks. I have often found minor league sport clubs a bit sad, dank arenas full of dreams half realized. So and so wanted to be a Major Leaguer but only made it to the Minors (if that); so and so must settle for a small scale audience and the mere chance to play the game. Perhaps it is this dual need for and lack of an audience that is especially disheartening; a semi-ridiculous sport is made that much more ridiculous by an absence of audience. It would be easy for my mind to continue to wander down the self-fabricated paths of the supposed let-downs of these anonymous athletes if not for Havens’ own method of approach. The ever shifting greenish, gold and grey metallic tones of Havens’ prints are downright poetic; these sparkling hues are able to drag even this far too judge-y mind out of the trash filled Fishtown gutters.

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact essence affecting this transformation. Monster Factory bears some tonal similarities to the tintypes and daguerreotypes of old; images which often extract feelings of somber reverence. However, content and composition break this connection; these are not the stiff postured portraits of old. One image centers upon two grappling wrestlers; a light skinned torso bends backward to the left side of the composition, met by a darker torso on right. Elbows point out and upward toward the left hand corner of the plate. These angled arms and bodies create diagonal lines, mirrored movements lithely stretching with a dancer’s grace. Two fists cluster amidst the corporeal press, their white knuckle grip a reminder of the true nature of the activity on display. In a small space between wrist and bicep, we are able to glimpse a small portion of the left hand figure's profile. Lips and nose meet this handhold, effectively softening the action once more. Slightly parted, the lips are not ridged in a grimace of determination. They are soft, relaxed, and practically inviting. A hand belonging to the figure on the right appears at the base of the frame, grasping the neck of its opponent. When taken in conjunction with the angle of the bodies, the hand's true mission becomes muddy; the purpose of this coupling oscillates between gladiatorial athleticism and impassioned intimacy. There is both softness and strength to the action unfolding.

Another frame appears to depict the same two wrestlers. Now parted, the left-hand figure (LF) stoops, gripping the ring with one arm and holding his chest with the other, while the right-hand figure (RF) stands at the ready in the background. Visible from the neck down, his splayed fingers reach towards LF almost tentatively. Despite the stippled belly hanging over the band of his lycra briefs, RF appears braced for action. With mouth gaping and posture bent, LF's affectation implies injury. However, the hand upon his chest rests lightly; it does not clutch or grab. The delicacy of this touch removes the viewer from LF's purported suffering; the event is dramatized and aestheticized once more. It is in this rift with reality that a sort of elevation may occur. These bodies in action become non-specific vessels, narrative spring boards. With the aid of a little imagination brief bouts of athleticism can stretch to epic proportions.

Havens is at his most dynamic with compositions including more than one human presence (however slight). In one image two wrestlers occupy the foreground, each facing the left side of the frame. One man has placed a hand on the other's shoulder, right arm raised to administer a pat of good sportsmanship. Hair dampened with sweat, their cheeks glisten under the intermittent arena lighting. A ring ascends in the background, graced by a single spot-lit figure standing with hands on hips, muscled arms on display. His/her stance is strong, commanding, and expectant. This event to which we bear witness is most likely far less dramatic than it appears, a simple moment between matches. However, the placement and carriage of this figure in the distance, when paired with the men in the foreground, creates intrigue; the potentially mundane is rendered mysterious. Another frame features a wrestler of indeterminate sex seated upon the mat. Upper-body covered by a one piece sleeveless bodysuit, the figure’s face is soft and hairless; Adam’s apple verification thwarted by neck positioning. Visible from mid-chest up; her/his upturned face is tense and somewhat pained. An arm descends from the top of the frame; its hand rests upon the side of the wrestler’s head and forehead. There is a godlike quality to this gesture, the arm drops down from on high in order to bestow...what? Perhaps the gifted and benevolent appendage has arrived to relieve this androgynous athlete’s suffering while simultaneously releasing the contender from her/his duty (as both wrestler and human-being) to struggle. This laying on of hand could also read as an act of absolution, effectively wiping the crumpled player clean of the shame and embarrassment generated both by failure and the general stigma associated with the sport. Whatever the case, the sheer potency of the touch and the moment created by it is undeniable.

Real-time witnesses to these dramatic exertions remain sparse to completely absent throughout Monster Factory. When an audience does appear in the frame, its members are bleached of identity; they are but small figures in small numbers, eyes often blackened and obscured by hard-horizontal shadows created by the ring’s ropes. The sweating, flinging, puffing, and peacocking all plays out to a seemingly dispassionate and aloof crowd; they sit at an almost royal remove from the ring. We have no entry into the thoughts and reactions of these anonymous onlookers; where interest, empathy, and narrative are sparked regarding our gladiators these bystanders remain a blank. In many ways this acts to augment the emotions already stirred within the gallery-going audience outside the frame. A sort of Big Bro/Sis protectiveness bubbles up in the wake of disinterest. Those images involving single wrestlers flexing, shouting, and posturing are not quite as affecting; the viewer’s teeth go un-sunk. That being said, as their numbers are few these images are effectively bolstered by the stronger frames. It could be argued these compositions provide a necessary respite from the fracas while also serving to document the theatrical side of the sport. Each wrestler has a character and a particular way in which s/he evokes said role. Perhaps these images are less successful due in part to the player’s own poor performance.

One image of this type emerges to provide an exception to the rule. A single wrestler stands center ring with wet hair falling about his shoulders; a slightly puckered mouth opens low to reveal a few off kilter bottom teeth. His eyes are two sunken holes, plucked and blotted by a shadow struck by a bit of rope in the foreground (from the ring, presumably); one bent and well-muscled arm crosses in front of him while the other hangs at his side, angling backward. The moment rests on a temporal precipice; it reads as both pre and post, before and after. However spare its contents this image is surprisingly affecting; it easily matches the vigor of the more complex compositions. Its vitality is generated almost entirely by attitude.

These dispatches from Life on the Mat bear relevance beyond the microcosmic back-basement sporting centers of North Philly. In many ways they embody our human desire to matter, to make a mark while playing out to a sparse if non-existent audience. These wrestlers fling themselves off ropes; they grapple and fight in tiny arenas a far cry from stadium lighting and an audience of millions via Pay-Per-View cable listings. Yet they appear to go forth with the same level of dedication to perform, cranked to eleven. Their ability to give their all to an empty room is a lesson to any person attempting to make their way in the world. In this way, the oft times pitiful and laughable (according to a judge-y curmudgeon like me) becomes commendable and relatable. As a somewhat unknown painter and draftsperson, unobserved endeavors are my middle name. Is my perseverance any more or less ludicrous? Monster Factory reflects back one’s own undertakings, revealing secret fuels stoking secret fires. While fame is not on my to-do-list, peel back the layers of generically bohemian ideals of truth, love, and beauty and I’m sure you’ll find a dark pitted craving for credit.


note:

[Havens’ later confirmed the wrestler of unspecified gender--Pretty Boy-- as male. I had initially deemed Pretty Boy a woman in a prior draft of this review. Rather than appropriately identifying PB’s sex at the outset, I decided to leave his gender unverified. Because the image creates the question, this quality adds something to the work. My own disclosure would potentially remove this aspect of the image from the discussion.]