Artscape

Game Show

By Tracy Zollinger Turner

BRYAN BULLOCK PHOTO

Adults and children dropped large red plastic chips that bounced through the maze of an artist-made Plinko game last Thursday evening. The easiest prize to win was play money, which contestants gleefully grabbed in fistfuls from a plastic tub, sometimes showering a few bills over their heads. Others spun a large, glittery wheel, a la The Price Is Right's Showcase Showdown, coming away with fake gold medals hung on red, white and blue ribbons. Finally, by guessing the exact price of items like a roll of paper towels, contestants could win a piece of art. It wasn't your usual Short North gallery opening—more like guerilla marketing meets performance art, replete with live subjects.

Come On Down, Mahan Gallery's last exhibit in its current location (the gallery will reopen in October in a new space just off of High Street on West Poplar Ave.), is a darkly humorous examination of American consumption, and the ways it is powered by the mystical marketing forces of television game shows.

From the exhibit's name to the curly dollar-sign price tags that one has to flip to find out about each of the works of art, homage to the Godhead of game shows, The Price Is Right, was strictly intentional. But the timing, just a few short weeks after Drew Carey was named the new cheese of the long-running program, strictly serendipitous.

BRYAN BULLOCK PHOTO

Artist Adam Brouillette, the organizing force behind the exhibit, said that he gladly includes Bob Barker and Merv Griffin on his list of artistic influences. He also lists The Price Is Right as his favorite show on his web site, and even tried, unsuccessfully, to make it into the live studio audience on a recent trip to Los Angeles.

"I find myself playing the games in the grocery store, like, 'Hmm, black beans, 98 cents," he said. "It's like the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—there's something strangely creepy about it, but there's also something very alluring."

When asked to help come up with a fun ending to Mahan's High Street run, he came up with the concept and sought out fellow artists Dan Gerdeman, Clinton Reno, Steve Seeley
and James.

"I decided to get some people that I know don't mind being a little ridiculous," said Brouillette. "I picked guys that have a love and respect for art, but know that it's also okay to have a sense of humor."

While the aesthetic of each participating artist is quite distinct, they do share a common thread; what looks lighthearted or serene upon first glance is often actually unsettling upon closer inspection. The work of Seeley, Reno and James each contain elements of steady-handed classic illustration, evoking the tones of children's stories and feel-good advertisements. But James' boys are happy sadists, while Reno's animals and heroes are literally motivated by dollar signs. Seeley's twists are as evident in his titles as his work, including Bob Barker (as centaur) With Forest Friends.

Gerdeman's darkling, concert T-shirt-wearing creatures sometimes turn out to be more innocent than they look. In a 20-canvas piece entitled approaches or exclamations to save your dignity on national television (or how not to look like a jerk in front of ten million people), his rock 'n' roll animals offer alternatives to swear words, including "What the dickens," "Ohh poopie," and "Karma." Brouillette's bright and shiny rotund, round-headed characters fail at Jeopardy and, in great numbers on one wall filled with pieces called This American Life, lose their minds over vacuum cleaners, golf clubs, apple pie and irons.

"I know that with my work, people look at it and say 'oh, that's cute,' and then realize that there is something subversive about it," said Brouillette. "I think all of us have a tendency to make it pretty and say something underhanded."

August 2nd, 2007

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