The Hard Hat Show: The art of trade workers

by Valerie Valentine

After one year, Outsiders and Others Gallery is going strong. Yuri Arajs decided to honor those who helped get the gallery off the ground in an exhibit themed around trade workers, The Hard Hat Show. Represented here are an electrician, a house painter, a remodeler and a house framer. The show effectively stretches the mind towards new ideas of what constitutes art. Outsiders and Others has consistently excelled in stretching our definitions of who can be an artist. These “Hard Hat” crewmen are no strangers to the art world. However, the fact that they’re not art school dandies may be enough to classify them as “outsiders.”

Jonathan Nelson uses “post-consumer” products; he recycles stuff. Found objects are used to make unpredictable collages. The Theater Series evokes snippets of the stage with bits of costume and curtain. Electricity aids his pieces by providing light, with glowing incandescent bulbs that warm the viewer with their intensity. The Music Boxes are charming, in that they’re utilitarian shelving with a twist—old radios installed to provide a sweetly eerie soundtrack. The “Draining” music box is spare, but the drain and spout, along with a rubber ducky inside, would fit perfectly into someone’s bathroom décor. Inside a gallery, the sculpture achieves lovely absurdity. Nelson is known for his musical endeavors, most notably as host of the Radio K (770 AM) show “Some Assembly Required,” which features audio collage artists. His assemblages show evidence of a reconstructive consistency through all his work. If you guessed this artist to be the home renovator of the bunch, you’re exactly right.

On his House of Balls website, Allen Christian describes his sculptures thusly: “…each item comes already invested with its own unique history—what I call its ‘fingerprint’ because no two objects, like no two people, experience their time on the planet in the same way.” As I gazed upon his metal sculpture, “The ‘J’ Man,” I knew that those J pipes were not having the same molecular life as those in a plumber’s inventory. Fused together into a life-sized human form, the figure stands post as an imposing, yet friendly greeter to visitors.

Another Christian sculpture, “Buck,” is scary and impressive. Actual antlers adorn this metal monstrosity, replete with a delicate teeth mold and glassy eyeballs. Hunters of the world who like to preserve their achievements should consider the employment of Christian as taxidermist for a memorable trophy. This buck is wild, far beyond the traditional mounted carcass.

Frank Erickson uses found objects and hardware in ways similar to Nelson and Christian. Taking the tools of his house-painterly trade, he paints huge folksy faces and flowers with Fauvist flair. Instead of paintbrushes, he uses sticks. Instead of canvas, Erickson paints doors or tarp.

Erickson’s sculpture “French Girl Masturbating” takes up a whole wall of the gallery. This project echoes Eugene Delacroix’s painting “Liberty Leading the People,” but she’s not holding a gun here. By using wood, fabric and lots of other stuff, he’s represented a woman in the midst of self-pleasure. The effect is humorous rather than sexy; sexual freedom, anyone? The slight placement of the figure’s hand, which invokes the title, is a small detail in an intricate tangle of sculpture.

Fine arts technique is evident in Josh Norton’s work. A house framer by day, printmaker by night, his pieces address the mess of desire and power. These images are pretty; their clean lines contrast with the complexity of its premise.
The show achieves unity through the use of unconventional industrial materials to make art. May this exhibit solidify and reinforce the base of a burgeoning young gallery in Elliot Park.

The Hard Hat Show runs through May 1. Outsiders & Others Gallery, 1010 Park Ave. S., Mpls. 612-338-3435.