Naming: Heteronymy and the imaginary artists of George Herms

Abstract

© 2018 Smithsonian Institution. Within a Cold War climate of paranoia regarding secret identities and communist plots, California-based artist George Herms realized artworks attributed to fictional artist-authors: Eric Hammerscoffer, Paul Mistrie, Iris Firewater, Sigmund Fletcher, Astropoet Moonstone, and Tarzan Feathers. The lives of these imaginary artists were narrated in outlandish biographies, and their artworks were displayed in museum and gallery exhibitions. Rather than simply presenting work under a different name (a pseudonym), Herms deployed the literary technique of heteronymy—which is both a tool (a heteronym) and a conceptual strategy. Herms’s heteronymous practice comprised presenting work by distinct personae, each of whom differed from the others in terms of aesthetic style, philosophy, personality, and life story. By advertising the fictional status of the attributed artists, and doing so alongside documentation of their existence, Herms galvanized the problematic space connecting a named artist-author to his/her/their artwork.