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Taking art to the streets
Untitled 11/14 by Tobin Yelland |
By LENNIE BENNETT
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 14, 2002
Detour is an art show that veers toward the individualistic, the urban, the disaffected; viewers shouldn't expect well-traveled aesthetic routes here.
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TAMPA -- Detour is the kind of art show that will probably put off followers of mainstream art, and that is unfortunate.
The exhibit opens Friday at Covivant Gallery and has a tie-in with the big pro-skate event at Skatepark of Tampa this weekend. But Detour is not Skateboard Art. It is a grouping that could be described in academic terms as urban or neo-pop art by mostly young artists, many self-trained, who translate counterculture issues often associated with activities such as skateboarding into edgy visual statements about alienation, disaffection, freedom and self-expression.
"Skateboarding is about individuality," said Kathy Olivas, a curator and participating artist in Detour. "It tends to attract people who also draw, write, take photographs."
[Times photo: Dan McDuffie 1997]
A skateboarder practices a trick on the outdoor half pipe at the Skatepark of Tampa.
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Nationally known names such as Ed Templeton and Jim Houser will share gallery space with local artists, including Brandt Elling Peters, Derek Washington and Cindy Arriola, who signs her work P$ynner. They work in many media -- video and photography figure prominently along with multimedia installations and paintings with references to graffiti art and cartooning.
But this work has affinities with the skateboarding culture, aside from the fact that many of the participating artists also are skateboarders. Skateboarding is a street sport that, until skateparks legitimized it, was the bane of communities that banned it on public property.
It had to be practiced covertly, alone or in small groups, on city sidewalks and suburban parking lots. Urban art such as graffiti has evolved in much the same way, artists working alone at night to avoid arrest, the way monks once bent over illuminated manuscripts in secrecy and solitude.
An installation piece by Jim Houser
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Not part of Detours but an interesting component at Covivant are old skateboards on which the artists have painted original illustrations that will be for sale at the show. They range in price from $150 to $200. Like some of the more serious work in the show, they, too, use sweet images of childhood -- cartoon and storybook characters -- juxtaposed with nightmarish elements. Alice in Wonderland wears a gas mask and a Porky-like pig drips red paint that looks like blood. This is art that is not easy, comforting or comfortable, but if you want to know what's on the minds of many young people today, it is a window.
PREVIEW
Detour opens at Covivant Gallery, 4906 N Florida Ave., Tampa, on Saturday. Gallery hours Saturday and Sunday are noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free. The gallery is not open during the week. An opening reception is Friday, 8 p.m. to midnight. Admission is $5. The show runs through March 30. For information, call (813) 928-4661.
Skateboard artists
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Brandt Elling Peters |
| Brandt Elling Peters |
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Far left: Jim House
Left: Kathie Olivas |
| Right: Brandt Elling Peters
Far right: Circus Posterus |
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Far left: P$ynner
Left: Kathie Olivas |
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