“The Sweetest Thing” is Andrew Erdos’s installation of photos, video, sculpture and performance at Jack the Pelican. Santalopes are everywhere.

It is joyously ridiculous NC-17. Visitors will encounter a giant Santalope gingerbread house, a video of Santalope sex on a deserted Australian beach, Mrs. Santalope’s live North Pole dance—and her unabashed girl-on-girl eroticism—Santalopes at the Great Wall of China, Santalopes in glass, and lots and lots of candy.

Santalopes are a mythical breed of the artist’s invention—a chimerical hybrid of jolly old Saint Nick and garden-variety antelope. Their devotees mask themselves in traditional styrofoam Christmas Santa door decorations, custom-fitted with horns… They’re a little clumsy to wear. You have to look out of the mouth to see.

For several years, ambassador of American trash culture Andrew Erdos has reveled in Christmas year-round in the guise of a Santalope, traveling the world and spreading good cheer, like an ugly American ‘Son of Santa’ on Spring Break. Up until now, he’s been building an international fraternity of Santalopes, colliding with the customs and historical heritage of other nations, marveling at his own absurdity, and documenting it exhaustively in celebration of his own banality. This year marks the appearance of his female counterpart, Mrs. Santalope. Now, he embraces the intimate side of his own likeness. “The Sweetest Thing” is Erdos’s paean to the saccharine euphoria of Santalope mating rituals and sex.

Center stage is the giant gingerbread house. The exterior is wildly colorful with hundreds and hundreds of pounds of candy and other sweets in glorious variety. Inside, it is a pristine white winter landscape of crystalline sugar snow. During the opening on September 11, it will be inhabited by Mrs. Santalope, buck-naked, and her attendant lesser female Santalopes, who cuddle and caress her with adoring abandon. This is the collaborative contribution of Meira Robinson, an accomplished dancer, acrobat and artist who shares Erdos’s fascination with false idols and his enthusiasm for collapsing the boundaries between various media.

Tweny-four-year-old, New York-based artist Andrew Erdos works in a
variety of media combining sculpture, video, performance, photography and installation. He has exhibited at The National Centre for Contemporary Art in Moscow, Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts also in Russia, Beijing BS1 Contemporary Art Center, CRG Gallery in NY, The Chelsea Art Museum, and Artslave in Los Angeles. He was featured in the 2008 Deitch Projects Art Parade. His first New York solo show was earlier this year at the non-profit A.C. Institute in Chelsea. More of Erdos work can be seen at www.SANTALOPE.com