LONDON (AP) - Like most British artists, David Hensel thought that the opportunity to exhibit at the Royal Academy's prestigious summer exhibition would send his career soaring. Instead, the 61-year-old sculptor was bemused to find that his laughing human head has been left out of the exhibit. All that is on display is its plinth.
Officials said Hensel had submitted the head and the plinth separately—and they had preferred the plinth.
"The base was thought to have merit and accepted; it is currently on display," the Royal Academy said in a statement. "The head has been safely stored ready to be collected by the artist."
The Academy held out hope that the head may ultimately be exhibited, and said Thursday that curators still have to make a final decision.
Hensel took it in stride.
"I've seen the funny side, but I've also seen the philosophical side. ... It shows up not just the tastes of the selectors but also their unawareness," said Hensel, who belongs to the Royal British Society of Sculptors and teaches sculpture at University College in Chichester, southern England.
The head, which is carved from jesmonite, took Hensel two months to create. The plinth, cut from an old mortuary slab, took one day.
"I submitted the thing as one sculpture but the bits weren't bolted together so they must have become separated," Hensel said. "I like the plinth as an object. I just never thought of it as a sculpture in its own right.
"What pleases me, though, is that it gives a lot of people the chance to think about what art is."
The summer exhibition runs through Aug. 20.
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On the Net:
Royal Academy, http://www.royalacademy.org.uk
