HONEY, he's shrunk the icons. He's reduced Jeff Koons's giant floral Puppy to the size of a terrier and morphed the art critic Robert Hughes into a miniature Jabba the Hutt.
The indignity does not stop with the art world. Alasdair Macintyre has turned the mega rock stars U2 into 13-centimetre figures as part of a diorama in which the Edge - complete with teeny-weeny beanie - waters Puppy's nose. So is calling the work and his new solo show after U2's Elevation Macintyre's little joke?
Not entirely, says the Brisbane-based artist. It is as much homage as spoof, sparked in part by seeing the band in concert last year.
"It was sublime. Occasionally in life I had what I call God moments," Macintyre says. "The previous time I felt it was at the Bill Viola [The Passions] exhibition at the National Gallery … Of course, it's a different sort of God moment when you've got 40,000 people around you."
It is high praise for a gig, but it has provided Macintyre with sufficient inspiration to create all the dioramas in his new exhibition around the titles of U2 songs - from Staring at the Sun, to (Stay), Faraway So Close and The Pursuit of Happiness. "I like doing pieces with pop culture figures in them. I wanted to do something with Bono," he says.
And then he saw a film in which Koons was discussing Puppy - the work in which some jester seeded a cannabis plant when it was created outside the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, a few years ago - and decided to bring the icons of the art and pop world together. It is a small world after all for Macintyre.
"Koons was talking about how Puppy communicates love, in that smooth way he talks. And in the doco he climbed a ladder inside Puppy and said, 'Now I'm ascending into the sacred heart of Jesus' … I take his patter with a grain of salt. But I love his work."
Macintyre says he admires Hughes, too. Whether Hughes would appreciate being turned into the slug-like crime boss from Star Wars in the work Hands that Built America is hard to know. It is not the first time Macintyre has shrunk the stentorian critic to less than life-size. Hughes appeared about to impale an artist with an oversized pen in an earlier diorama.
"I like playing with the whole art world situation, where we have these prominent figures," he says.
For Macintyre these towering figures include the artist Ian Fairweather, who lived for years on Bribie Island, not far from the younger artist's home. In (Stay), Faraway So Close, he has depicted Fairweather emerging from a forest of paintbrushes.
