Hunter and Dog

Oliver Laric converts qualities of the digital age, such as reproduction, limitless variability, and instant distribution, into the physical realm. His 3D scanned sculptures challenge our understanding of art and conventional modes of arts institutionalization, including the complex legal ambiguities of copyright and rights of use. His effort to make art that is traditionally locked in a museum, accessible to an increasingly digital society, regardless of social, geographical, or cultural boundaries, on the one hand, challenges traditional modes of art institutionalism, while on the other, democratizes art, by stripping it of constrains to private ownership.

The Hunter and Dog sculpture is a 3D scan of a 19th century stone and marble sculpture by John Gibson, located at the Usher Gallery in Lincoln, UK. Cast as a free-standing relief, Laric’s interpretation of the work brings together Laric’s interest in notions of originality and authorship together with the relation between human and non-human animals. Laric questions the rigid hierarchies imposed by man upon our understanding of nature as a subject to domination and power imposition rather than as a complex web of interdependencies that we are a part of. Hunter and Dog addresses traditional hierarchies between animal and man, master and servant while emphasizing the profound connection between humans and animals, their mutual affinity, and their dependence on each other.