(con)Temporary Gallery: June 2005

Starting Over

We just started buffing out the walls and ripping off all of the little bitty pieces from last years fourth of July show. Down at the wall was Steven, the guardian, artist, and pigeon hunter of the walls. He gets paid by the antique store to kill all the pigeons on the roof and buff out all the graffiti. So if you are looking at the photo below of the crazy buff marks or the bags of pigeon shit and skeletons then you can praise the skill and cunningness of alleyway Steven.

THis entire bag is made up of pigeon shit and dead birds. I can't wait to be slip n sliding over that.

He told us a story about hunting some pigeons on the roof top. Apparently he was lining up a mighty clean shot on some fowl when behind him came an ear-clenching cat meow. He turned around just in time to see a huge hawk ripping the guts out of cat like it was an all you can eat spaghetti luncheon. The hawk raised it's head and met eyes with Steven. They shared a moment, like one of those "you didn't see shit and if you did then your jugulars mine bitch" type of moments. The hawk then scooped up the still live and meowing cat and flew off over the backyards of children playing wiffle ball with their dads.

We've got plenty more picking, peeling, and buffing to do.

Idea Forum

OK, so since we have so many people participating I've received suggestions to open up some sort of forum where everyone can throw down ideas. Hopefully, this will be helpful since this year's show lacks a binding theme to bring everyone's art into one cohesive body of work.

The Early Years

The first show began over a year ago and since then there have been 3 shows.
The first was a play off of the idea of removing graffiti, since the alley way was the epitome of buff marks. I passed out booklet maps that lead the participants on a walking tour from the newly born (con)temporary gallery to buff marks that they could hold their transparency booklets up to to make pictures. As they wormed their way through the surrounding neighborhood of odd shaped buff marks the booklet composed every splatter mark of paint negation to create something new out of what was erased.
The second show turned into a graffiti production which was decent but not at all that progressive. Right before the exhibiton the city made the one antique store business paint over their wall because it contained the word antique which broke the sign codes of the city of Reno. After this we were only allowed half of the space even though I met with a member of the city of Reno and got written documentation stating that what we were producing were Architectual Graphics which were completely supported under the City of Reno Sign code laws.
The third show was my favorite so far. The IndePENdent show which was a large mural that played with imagery associated with America, consumerism, Adbustery type jargon but was produced in a sarcastic and honest way. We had 3000 lbs. of sod donated that we layed down the alley way, covering only the good half of the space. We added a slip n' slide, brewskis, and music to complete the project.