Part of the true purpose of art is to poke at the boundaries of reality and further, to help us envision new realities previously out of the scope of our imaginations. Upon first glance at his work, you can see that Robert Lazzarini is an artist who certainly subscribes to this school of thought. Best known for his compound mathematical distortions of objects, his sculptures defy our habitual sense of space, leaving the viewer with a sense of bodily unease that is not entirely pleasant, but thought-provoking and challenging. Common themes for Lazzarini include violence, isolation, mortality and societal breakdown, which he incorporates into his art by warping ordinary objects like brass knuckles, a blown commercial safe, and a sawed-off Mossberg shotgun, using multiple mathematical distortions and directly related materials (ie reconstituted bone to make his piece skulls). The sculptures at once conjure criminal activity, brute force, and America?s never-ending fascination with violence. His work has been exhibited around the world, and included in major collections such as the Whitney Museum in New York City and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. (Portrait photo - "Robert Lazzarini" by Vergilius70 - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
