Perhaps less obviously, his photographs also evince this interest in making things permanent, since they preserve the bizarre juxtapositions created by his sculpture-masking pranks. He performed his first guerrilla-art act four years ago, when he noticed, across from Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills, a bronze sculpture of a man and woman walking. He added a scary mask so that “it looked like the creature from the Black Lagoon,” he says, and then snapped a picture. Most recently, he photographed a 1923 bust by Aristide Maillol in UCLAs sculpture garden wearing various fake noses, including a mouse snout.

“It’s such a dumb gesture,” Mabry admits, “but it creates this compelling imagery.” It’s reached the point where collectors now call the gallery and ask that he adorn their own sculptures. He has already done a few. 

For now, though, he would rather think about transforming the giant Rodin, which he is sandblasting to achieve a classic black patina. When that’s done, he will cast a mask in bronze and weld it to the figure.

What kind of mask? “I really like one I’ve used before—a large latex mask with a tongue sticking out and eyeballs bulging out of his head,” says Mabry. “The Thinker is already so loaded, it could be nice to have something that takes you in a different direction.”

"In the Studio: Nathan Mabry" originally appeared in the March 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's March 2008 Table of Contents.