Monstrous: The Symbology of a Whale

Artist Jos Sances was inspired by Herman Melville’s story of Moby Dick and used the elaborate silhouette of a life-size, female sperm whale, which now spans nearly the entirety of the museum’s back wall. Sances is an intricate draftsman, and his line work on the scratchboards paints a story of American history– the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s all there.

The museum has done an excellent job in curating a selection of objects from their permanent collection that accompany Sances’ work. Entering the space, visitors will discover many items that help to weave together a story of the triumphs and challenges of whale hunting. A large blubber hook sits on a raised platform, massive. Its presence sheds light on the gigantic scale that the whales embody. Nearby, an enlarged black and white photograph functions as an illustration, showing two men on a platform that extends off the side of a ship. 

It was common to dismantle the whale while it was still in the water, as the weight and size of the creature made it nearly impossible to haul aboard. Moving one’s field of vision from this historic and disturbing narrative, Or, The Whale looms large in the background. It requires close investigation. The details are so finely rendered that one could spend hours absorbing the amalgamation of information strewn throughout the shape of this imposing creature. 

Delving unabashedly into topics such as tech pollution, racism (from Japanese internment camps to slavery), politics, global warming, and food insecurity, the artist chose to create his interpretation of capitalism from 1850 to the present, an exploitation of labor and natural resources. The work took him eight months to make, and while the whale shape is visibly full, only a few of the interior references pay homage to Melville. From an image of the Pequot Tribe (one of the first tribes decimated by colonialism) to Steve Jobs, he tells a tale of America in a way that moves through time. 

For scale, Sances has said that the whale in Moby Dick would have been nearly 80 feet long, this one dwarfed in comparison. Yet, through the presence of the artwork in Mystic, and its proximity to water, we are transported to a time when these animals were extremely desirable, but also made aware of the inherent dangers that were present, not only for the whales, but for the sailors. A whaling journey could take anywhere from 2-4 years in extremely uncomfortable conditions. 

Sances completed the artwork in 2019, and this and a few iterations have been exhibited at both the Kala Gallery and Richmond Art Center in California and the Lawrence Art Center in Kansas. It has also been documented in essay format by Jeffrey Peterson, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023. 

What the current installation gives to those who visit Mystic is more than an aesthetic experience. Beyond the visual of the many historic objects that accompany the installation, including a whale jaw bone, the exhibition elicits what is perhaps the most important component of any art show: feelings. One cannot ignore the horrors of whale hunting or the triumphs of the catch. In the same way, we cannot ignore the atrocities that are depicted in Sances’ drawings. 

However, when asked in 2021 if in his version of reality, ‘there any kind of capitalism that could work,’ he came away recognizing that the problem isn’t necessarily capitalism, but that the United States, “has never truly had democracy.” Monstrous remains on view through 2026 and successfully provides space for all of these things to be considered.