In March 1974, fragments of a clay figure were unearthed by Chinese peasants in the northwest province of Shaanxi. Those fragments led to what is considered one of the greatest archaeological finds of the century – a life-size army of terra cotta warriors buried in the tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi, who proclaimed himself first emperor of China in 221 B.C.
The tomb itself is an underground realm spread across 22-square-miles that presumably replicates Quin Shi Huangdi’s real world court, with the terra cotta warriors, standing in formation dressed in topknot caps and armored vests, guarding the emperor from any metaphysical threats in the afterlife.
Half a world away and close to fifty years later, a similar contingent of warriors kept watch in Laramie, Wyoming, not so much protecting students at the University of Wyoming but reminding them that mass culture inevitably evolves to reflect the times. While the poses and stances remain the same, the cap-and-goatee-wearing Chinese soldiers from two millenniums ago have been replaced by Mickey Mouse, Batman, Spider-Man and Bart Simpson – a collection of Pop Warriors standing guard over an America landscape of popular cultural that extends around the globe.
Conceived by artist Lizabeth Eva Rossof, the 2021 Pop Warrior exhibit at the University of Wyoming Art Museum was an extension of her earlier Xi’an-American Warriors from 2010. Wanting to explore “the dominance of globalized American media at the intersection of China’s robust industries that replicate copyrighted properties,” Rossof worked with the Terra Cotta Warrior replica studio in Xi’an to create eighteen-inch-tall statues that duplicate the armored bodies of the originals but with heads from various pop culture icons.
“I wanted them to be of the same earth as the rest of the replicas,” Rossof explained to Tech Times in 2014. “The Xi’an Warriors themselves were replicas. They weren’t unique pieces. They were churned out, many, many, many, many of the same piece.”
The seeds for the project derived from an August 2009 article about an ancient army of terra cotta Mouseketeers discovered underneath Cinderella Castle at Disney World published on The Onion. Lizabeth Eva Rossof was already aware of the actual Terra Cotta Warriors when she read the satirical piece, having been introduced to them years earlier during a college art class.
“That professor had been there in the ’70s and had pictures of being actually down in the archaeological site, being completely immersed,” she explained to Pop Warriors curator Michelle Sunset in the exhibit brochure. “That’s the fantasy, the dream I had about this experience. Sometimes these experiences are even more visceral and exciting and the pictures don’t do them justice. But sometimes you go and it’s like ‘is that it?’ The Xi’an warriors are spectacular, but not in the same way as the fantasy I had created in my head.”
The original statues that Lizabeth Eva Rossof created premiered as part of a Hey China! exhibit at the Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles. Five pop culture characters were depicted – Mickey Mouse, Shrek, Bart Simpson, Batman, and Spider-Man. The poses of the statues, meanwhile, duplicated such Terra Cotta Warriors depictions as “General,” “Emperor,” and “Kneeling Archer.” The exhibit was a success but the time and financial costs of having the statues crafted in China limited the series to one of each character and made future replicas prohibitive.
After the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, California, staged a successful BLOW UP: Inflatable Contemporary Art exhibit in 2015 that featured large-scale inflatable statues, Lizabeth Eva Rossof was invited to participate in the BLOW UP II follow-up in 2019.
“When Carrie Lederer of Bedford Gallery asked me if I’d like to have them made into Blow Ups, I wasn’t sold on the idea right away because I couldn’t find the conceptual tie-back,” Rossof told Michelle Sunset. “Then I started thinking of all the tchotchkes I had seen with the likeness of the warriors on them. Anything you could think of. Pens, chess sets, hot sauce bottles, earrings, lenticular cutouts mounted on foam core. All of it. So, blowing them up began to seem less unjustifiable. Then I started thinking about the experiences one would have being surrounded by them and it seems to be so magical and playful I couldn’t resist.”
Two years later, the standalone Pop Warriors exhibit premiered at the University of Wyoming. Five Terra Cotta Warriors of pop cultural descent sparsely populated a single gallery, with generators keeping the twelve-foot-tall statues inflated being the only sound in the room. Walking through the dimly-lit exhibit is indeed magical, with the gray walls and wood paneled floors adding to the archeological-like atmosphere.
Emperor Shrek stands front and center, flanked by a kneeling Bart Simpson and protected in the rear by General Mickey Mouse and his twin comic book soldiers, Batman and Spider-Man. The original clay Batman is included as well, showcasing the exquisite details that Lizabeth Eva Rossof crafted into her initial terra cotta Xi’an-American Warriors and the respect she had for the originals created over two thousand years ago and half a world away.
“The project was intended to be a balanced critique of US cultural dominance and the Chinese disregard for intellectual property,” Rossof explains in the exhibit brochure. “I think both are a bit monstrous and ugly, and this has been a playful way to bring them together and sort of celebrate how messed up we all are – albeit in different ways. I went into the project making sure that the warriors were not seen as sacred objects or that the site where they were excavated was not a holy site. They are not. I was certain the odds of being sued by Disney were higher than offending a person from Xi’an.”
In the end, Lizbeth Eva Rossof succeeded on both a small and large scale, with the added bonus of being free from any legal ramifications as well.
Anthony Letizia
