Untitled

Mullican's primary influence at the beginning of his career was Bruce Nauman, in particular the way that the post-Minimal sculptor made works in many mediums but always with his own body as subject, object, and prime referent. At the same time, Mullican was also involved in self-actualization therapies then in vogue in Calfornia, in which the subject excavated his or her earliest memories in order to shake off the accreted repressions that accompany rearing and schooling. His project, as a result, was to create an open-ended cosmology of the self in which each individual work--from performances under hypnosis and stick figure drawings to symbol-laden banners and buttons--was but a fragment. This work is from a series of lifesize bulletin boards the artist created using personal snapshots, ephemera, and drawings of his fictional alter-ego Glen testing the boundaries of his imaginary world. Like traditional tackboards used by artists, these loose arrangements defy any clear narrative or associational connections except those made by the creator; what is crucial is that the finished work of art maps the free-flowing thought, memory and imagination that usually precedes the creation of work of art--now placed front and center.