Bumpman on a Tree Trunk

Paloma Varga Weisz’s impressive exhibition, Bumped Body (at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, United Kingdom) opened just before the COVID-19 lockdown, over the winter 2020, and then had to close (it was later extended until January 2021). Varga Weisz remembered it all in conversation with Anna McNay (published in the magazine sculpture on November 16, 2020):

I was in shock. We had the opening night, and I think we were all in a bubble of happiness, and we didn’t realize that everything around us was already completely different. I think I blocked reality until I flew back to Germany. It was a challenging time, and I had a really strong reaction to the closing of the show.

One of the pieces on display during lockdown was a monumental version of Bumpman on a Tree Trunk (Bronze, 2018) which had been placed outside of the institute:

When we chose him to go outside, we had no idea of what would happen just a few weeks later. I am very interested in images from the Middle Ages and 16th-century pamphlets depicting what, in German, you would call Wundergeburt. It doesn’t really translate, but they are monstrous people— babies with two heads, misfits—who were seen as holy, sent from God as signs. Bumpman was inspired by one of these images, and so I feel that he is very connected to that history. He became a sign without being intended as such. When I made him, I wasn’t interested in making a sign; I was approaching him as a sculpture with lymph nodules all over his body. But then, suddenly, there was a whole new lens through which to see him. 

The strong sense of illness about the “Bumpman”, something to do with a virus or a plague, was thus viewed through the lens brought about by COVID-19. Varga Weisz, however, chooses to view the “Bumpman” as a messenger of hope:

I think he is also a character with whom you could make friends. He has a peaceful expression, and he gives you a feeling of happiness, like you want to hug him. I don’t know—I’m not the person who should give you an interpretation, but I think he has a glimmer of hope, and I hope that he is seen as a positive sign.

Maybe Varga Weisz is correct in thinking that the mute and mysterious man with his body covered in peculiar bumps has something to tell us, if we just take the time to listen? Maybe, like the crucified Christ pitted with plague-type sores in Matthias Grünewald’s (c. 1470 – 1528) Isenheim Altarpiece (1512 – 1516, Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, Alsace, France), the “Bumpman” shows us that he understands and share our conflictions, thus bringing hope and consolation to all of us. 

Provenance
CFHILL, Stockholm, Skogspromenad, 8 October – 3 November 2021.
Firestorm Foundation (acquired from the above).

Copyright Firestorm Foundation