This and many more avant-garde creations will be part of Industrial Carnival.
Theo Wujcik has been busy. A group of his new drawings and paintings will be unveiled on Saturday during a reception at Bleu Acier, a new gallery at 109 W Columbus Drive, Tampa.
But Bleu Acier is more than a gallery. Owner Erika Greenberg Schneider is a master printer who lived, studied and worked in Europe for about 20 years. When she returned several years ago to be near family, she brought with her a battery of 19th and early 20th century presses for the lithographs and etchings she creates with visiting artists. The gallery's name is from the French phrase for "blue steel" and refers to the moment when the metal, interacting with heat, turns blue.
Working from a converted warehouse in Tampa Heights, where she lives with her husband, a sculptor, and young daughter, Schneider has carved out a salon-style space for exhibiting prints and other art, such as Wujcik's.
Among his new work are two large paintings that continue Wujcik's preoccupation with objects as ironic symbols, such as a perfume bottle juxtaposed with a gleaming, phallic water faucet, shown above. It's quintessential Wujcik, in a pop art style that manages to be both sly and cerebral. Also on view is a series of drawings inspired by artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Nauman and Jasper Johns, done with classical allusions.
The free opening reception is Saturday, 5:30 to 10 p.m. Gallery hours are Saturday 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. or by appointment. (813) 272-9746.
An evening on the artistic edge
If this were a multiple choice quiz, you would probably guess that the contraption shown above is (a), an updated torture device by Tomas de Torquemada or (b), a sci-fi thingamajig in a Jules Verne remake.
You would be wrong. It is a work of art.
Created by Jeff Stover, it's an interactive video piece installed in headgear. The steel tubing is partly aesthetic but mostly functional: It holds the work up so wearers will not need major work on their neck and back muscles.
It and many more avant-garde creations will be part of Industrial Carnival, a one-night event at the Bustillo Cigar Factory, 2111 N Albany, Tampa. Organized by Stover, an art student at the University of South Florida, along with other students and Richard Beckman, a USF professor, it is, said Stover, "not a gallery event. It's an installation of sorts."
And how. Along with Stover's work will be a robotic fish by Bill Kearns dubbed Cybernetic Salmon, performance pieces by Clarina Bezzola in her prosthetic body suits, an installation and performance piece by Experimental Skeleton, and videos, sculpture and mixed-media work by mostly student artists that conform to the carnival theme of the fantastical and absurd.
Entertainment will include live music by Chaotic Formula and Dialect and, in the spirit of art as visceral dialogue, a staged women's wrestling performance, "Wrestlewomania with Chocolate Chariot."
Irony and fun will no doubt abound.
The free event is Friday, 7 p.m. to midnight. (813) 997-2842.
Something new, out of the blue
A new art festival debuts Saturday and Sunday in Clearwater in conjunction with the annual Fun 'n' Sun event. Out of the Blue Festival of Art is smaller than many of its kind, with about 60 exhibiting artists and craftsmen, but it's a solid roster. If you missed Mainsail two weeks ago, Out of the Blue is a chance to revisit many of the local artists who showed there, among them Denis Gaston, Ummarid Eitharong, Brooke Allison, Tim Ludwig and Scott Coulter, who won Mainsail awards this year.
And it's inside, in the Harborview Center, 300 Cleveland St., Clearwater.
It's organized by the Professional Association of Visual Artists, which brings together the Cool Art Show each summer. The group has encountered a wrinkle in its plans for Cool Art, however. Rent has gone up at the usual venue on the campus of University of South Florida St. Petersburg, and they're scrambling to find a more affordable one.
Admission to Out of the Blue Festival of Art is free; hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. For information, go to www.outoftheblueartshow.com
