Pre-Columbian Pyramidal Skull No. III

Notkin’s skull & pyramid symbolism takes on minor functional significance in this piece, the object accruing the personality of a camp-shock film prop or pulp costume-like apparatus. The quality of sculpting and moulding allows a similarly heightened sense of reality, the texture of the clay buffed and brushed with a metallic glaze to give the appearance of metal and suggesting a density and physicality far greater than in actuality.