Artists Reimagine the Oscar for ‘The Hollywood Reporter’

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Oppenheimer (2023) dominated the Academy Awards in Los Angeles last night with seven wins, including best picture. Poor Things (2023) also had a big night, winning four Oscars including the best actress prize, which went to Emma Stone.

In the lead up to the event, The Hollywood Reporter commissioned artists including Alake Shilling, Kenny Scharf, and Trulee Hall to create artworks inspired by the Oscar statuette. The works can be viewed at an exhibition organised by writer Michael Slenske and presented by the magazine along with Los Angeles gallery Jeffrey Deitch.

The exhibition, The Art of Oscar, continues at 7000 Santa Monica Boulevard through 16 March.

The original Oscar was designed by Cedric Gibbons, sculpted by George Stanley, and cast for the first time in 1928. Rendered in an art deco style, it depicts a knight holding a sword.

Artist Karon Davis, whose version of the statuette resembles an Egyptian mummy, wondered if Gibbons was influenced by the god Ptah.

Ptah ‘was the god of craftsmen, architects, and artists,’ she wrote in the magazine, noting that he ‘holds a staff, or djed, for stability and projection’.

Polly Borland‘s version of the Oscar, pictured top, looks more like it’s suffocating in a suit of cellophane.

‘The contortions within the form capture how women are sewn into their dresses, and the excruciating thrills and heightened self-consciousness I would experience in this moment, all wrapped up in glitter and gold,’ she said.

Among the most outrageous renditions are an Octopus clutching five Oscars in its tentacles by Alake Shilling and a buff version by Seth Bogart.

For her work, Isabelle Brourman created a maximalist drawing.

‘This piece, Get Ready With Me, is a subgenre of digital storytelling popularised by lifestyle vloggers, which delves into the symbiotics of a pretty picture,’ she said. ‘It points to the process it takes to appear perfect, like deconstructing Cinderella.’ —[O]

Main image: Polly Borland's reinterpretation of the Oscar statuette for The Hollywood Reporter. Courtesy the artist.