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The Many Faces of Dick
and Al
by Josh Kraetsch
Collaboration is celebrated this season on the
walls of Gallery 360. The current show, The Many Faces of Dick and
Al, is a heady brew of two homegrown talents and one Southside creative
haven that have been converging and working Minneapolis magic for
years.
Known to be lively, inspiring and at times sobering,
the works of local mixed-media staples Dick Brewer and Al Wadzinski
are ever-inventive, clever and compelling. The two have found a
collaborator to hang with in Gallery 360, which has hosted five
previous fall shows that feature the duo’s junk assemblages
and plexi-glass creations. The focus of this, their first themed
show, is faces, and in these guys’ hands it becomes an invitation
to investigate context.
Best buds who have been working together and
separately for a combined 55 years, “Dick and Al” have
amassed experience and materials aplenty, becoming adept at expressing
stories through objects they’ve accumulated along the way.
This show begins with their trip to the South Point of Hawaii, a
natural trove of flotsam and jetsam, and a perfect place for scavengers
such as these to make faces from materials at hand and then leave
them in the sand. The beauty of the beach combined with the fun
of finding sea treasures is evident in the photo of a character
created with an unwitting puffer fish and fine locks of white plastic
twine. The pathos of a dead, wave-flayed fish is transformed and
paid strange tribute by the playful addition of accoutrements and
sublime light saturating its face.
Though made of discarded items, these faces brim
with beauty and ignite the imagination, even when they are cast
as uglier sides of experience, such as “Geronimo in Florida.”
Forlorn and tortured, made appropriately from chains, this piece
is a reference, with reverence, to the time the Apache chief spent
imprisoned in Florida. One lonely feather sits atop the caved face,
creating a powerful portrait of an unfortunate soul, strong but
broken.
The explosion of ideas and materials on display
is far too varied to capture here, but a trip to Gallery 360 offers
such tricky treats as a bike-chain-encased-in-cement face and a
face composed from a TV tray and checkerboard that uses a spine
for a smile. The assemblages of Brewer and Wadzinski feature a vast
array of materials—bones, nails, angels, chains, bullet shells,
bottle caps, aluminum can tabs, an old photograph—as diverse
as the expressions they represent.
The Many Faces exhibit brings the etceteras and
miscellany of an overcrowded world together with a restless, refined
energy. Brewer and Wadzinski delight in uniting the wonderfully
unlikely, creating faces that remind us of what’s lost and
what’s found.
The Many Faces of Al and Dick is on display
through Nov. 27 at Gallery 360, 3011 W. 50th St., Mpls., 612-925-2400.
Gallery hours are Mon.–Wed. 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Thu. 10
a.m.–8 p.m.; Fri.–Sat. 10 a.m.–
6 p.m.; Sun. noon–5 p.m.
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