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Cleared for takeoff

The gallery Flight 19 opens opens next to Tampa's renovated Union Station with works by musician and singer Mark Mothersbaugh.

By LENNIE BENNETT
Published July 8, 2005

TAMPA - Flight 19, a new art gallery, takes off with the aesthetic equivalent of a rocket booster.

Recent work by Mark Mothersbaugh, the Devo singer and composer and a visual artist with an international following, heads the exhibition lineup for the venue. It opens today in the old baggage claim building next to the renovated Union Station on the eastern edge of downtown Tampa, near Ybor City and the Channelside District.

Experimental Skeleton, a not-for-profit artists' collaborative, is founding the gallery with help from the city of Tampa.

The city owns the 5,000-square-foot building and is letting Experimental Skeleton use it rent-free.

"This is really a win-win situation," said Paul Wilborn, the city's creative industries manager. "When Union Station was renovated, the baggage building wasn't finished out and it's been sitting empty for years. It's perfect for an art gallery."

Joe Griffith, Experimental Skeleton's leader, said they have invested about $2,000 to make it usable as a gallery.

The hitch, Griffith said, is the building is for sale and the gallery must go if a buyer steps forward.

"We named it Flight 19," he said, "because that was the name of the first group of planes lost in the Bermuda Triangle. This is an ephemeral exhibition space that could disappear at any time."

"It's been for sale for years," Wilborn said. "Even if it sold tomorrow, it would be months before anything was final."

Working as a group, Experimental Skeleton creates large installations and commissioned projects such as the floating lotuses for St. Petersburg's First Night 2000. They are also artists who work on their own solo art. The core group, Griffith says, is seven members but, depending on the project, can jump to a dozen or more. They don't plan to show Experimental Skeleton collaborations in Flight 19 but act as curators.

In addition to Mothersbaugh's digital prints of manipulated, sometimes hand-colored vintage photographs, Tampa artist Giancarlo Rendina's collage paintings will be displayed through July 31. After that, said Griffith, they plan more exhibitions, assuming the space is available.

Mothersbaugh, famously noncommittal, may or may not attend today's free opening reception from 7 to 11 p.m.

"It's possible," says Joe Griffith, one of the gallery's founders, "but unlikely."

"Beautiful Mutants," recent work by Mark Mothersbaugh, and "Steeples," small-scale collage paintings by Giancarlo Rendina, are at Flight 19, 601 Nebraska Ave., Tampa, through July 31. Opening reception from 7 to 11 tonight is free. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

[Last modified July 8, 2005, 01:01:05]